Re: Mercyhurst Lakers 2009-2010
Extra practice pays off for top-ranked Mercyhurst against No. 5 UMD
By RON LEONARDI
ron.leonardi@timesnews.com
Mercyhurst College's women's hockey team spent a lot of extra time in practice this week working on its power play and penalty kills.
Good thing for the No. 1 Lakers, because their 5-2 win over No. 5 Minnesota Duluth on Friday before 713 fans at the Mercyhurst Ice Center was all about special teams.
In a game in which the teams combined for 30 penalties and 27 power plays, the two biggest plays for the Lakers came early in the second period. With Mercyhurst trailing 2-1 in the second period, sophomore forwards Bailey Bram and Jess Jones scored short-handed goals nine seconds apart on the same UMD power play to put the Lakers (7-0-0) ahead to stay.
"Those were huge momentum-gainers for us,'' Mercyhurst coach Michael Sisti said. "I thought we came out a little flat in the first period, but those two goals really jump-started us. They got the crowd into it, they got our players rolling and that was nice to see.''
Mercyhurst also scored three times on the power play while overcoming a 2-0 first-period deficit to notch its first win over Duluth (5-4-0).
UMD, a perennial Western Collegiate Hockey Association power, had gone 3-0-1 against Mercyhurst, including two NCAA tournament playoff wins, in the past three years.
"Everyone was saying it would be nice to beat these guys because their league has always put us down,'' said Bram, who scored twice. "We've always been trying to prove ourselves, and today was awesome. The girls are flying and everyone was so pumped to get the win.''
Bram scored on the power late in the first period to pull the Lakers within 2-1.
With Mercyhurst short-handed early in the second period, the Lakers struck twice. Junior forward Jesse Scanzano followed her own shot from the left circle behind the net, corralled the puck and fed it to Bram, who beat Duluth freshman goalie Jennifer Harss with a top-shelf wrister from the slot at 2 minutes, 33 seconds.
"She gave me a perfect pass, right on the tape and I had to put it away,'' Bram said.
"We worked hard on keeping sticks in lanes and blocking shots, and I think everyone did a really good job on that penalty kill to give us momentum,'' Jones said.
Nine seconds after Bram's goal, Jones gave Mercyhurst the lead.
Mercyhurst defender Cassea Schols sent the puck in deep around the boards. Harss came out to play it behind the net, but the puck took a funny bounce off the end boards and carmoned out in front to the low slot, where Jones scored into a wide-open net.
"In the first period, we came out nervous and I think we felt we had to kind of prove ourselves,'' Bram said. "We went into the dressing room and talked that we can't let them get under our skin, we have to go like we do every game, and we did.''
The Lakers went 3-for-14 with the man advantage, generating 24 of their 37 shots.
"It's early in the year and we're still a fairly young team,'' Sisti said. "We worked on our special teams and it was good to see our players grasp what we gave them. All week, the coaches and players put a lot of focus into some details. It was nice to see that work pay off and to see us execute some of the things we really focused on.''
Schols made it 4-2 with a power-play goal at 17:45 of the second period, and Mercyhurst defender Melissa Lacroix added a third-period power-play goal.
Mercyhurst killed all 13 UMD power plays, limiting the Bulldogs to 10 shots.
"I'm stunned at 30 penalties being called in a hockey game,'' UMD coach Shannon Miller said. "I come from the tradition of when you have two good teams on the ice, you let them play and you let them decide the winner of the game. I don't even know what to say about 30 penalties.''
UMD has appeared in three straight NCAA Frozen Four Tournaments, but the Bulldogs lost six players from last season to graduation and another six players to Olympic centralization.
"We're a very young team and, honestly, I'm surprised we're ranked fifth in the country right now,'' Miller said. "I'm very happy about that. I thought we had a really good first period and a really good third period. I thought when we played five-on-five, we could play with Mercyhurst, which is a good sign for us at this point with such a young team.''
Note: Friday's victory stretched Mercyhurst's regular-season winning streak to 20 games dating to last season.
