Williams Women's Hockey team loses tough one in OT 4-3
MANCHESTER, NH - In a season that has gotten off to a disappointing start, the
Williams women's hockey team has suffered yet another disappointing defeat, this time at the hands of this weekend's tournament host St. Anselm (7-3-1), who came back twice in this afternoon's action to eventually defeat the Ephs (1-6-1) in overtime by a 4-3 score."We played pretty well for the whole 60 minutes," said Ephs head coach Shannon Bryant, "but we simply couldn't come away with the win today."
After a lengthy recess, the squad (who were coming off of their only victory of the season, a 3-2 win over Conn. College on the 6th of December) got off to an auspicious start with an unassisted goal by junior defenseman Kait O'Brien, her fifth of the year at 13:26 in the first period. But the Hawks responded quickly with an unassisted goal of their own, netted by freshman forward Michelle Lacombe, her fourth at 14:42.
O'Brien was then on the giving end of another go-ahead slapped in by Eph freshman forward Eliza Foster, putting Williams back in the lead at 11:48 in the second. But this lead too would soon disappear, as sophomore forward Kristen Byrne put in another unassisted Hawk goal exactly six minutes later.
With the score knotted at 2, Eph co-captain Joey Lye committed what would prove to be a costly checking penalty in the first minute of the third. Saint Anselm did not hesitate to capitalize as senior forward Kathleen Twomey scored an unassisted power-play goal at :46 to give the Hawks their first lead of the game. However, Lye would atone for her error by assisting the game-tying goal, scored by her captain counterpart senior forward Sam Tarnasky, her first of the year at 2:03. Both Williams junior netminder Sara Plunkett and Saint Anselm sophomore Carley Berry kept the score tied for the rest of regulation, each helping her team survive a penalty kill.
The game was finally decided in the overtime period after senior defenseman Mallory Green's interference penalty put the Hawks on the power-play. It was senior forward Kelsey Johnson who did the honors for Saint Anselm with her fifth on the season, a game-winning power-play goal. Although they came away with a point, another strong effort against a tough opponent failed to yield two points for Williams.
"We will definitely have to bring a similar, if not better effort to the game tomorrow," concluded Bryant. "We'll see how well we do [against Manhattanville]."
The Ephs will finish the tournament against offensive juggernauts Manhattanville College (7-1-0). It will prove to be yet another formidable challenge for the struggling team, and they will have to continue to skate hard and stay out of the penalty box in order to come away with a win. Puck drops at 5:00PM in Manchester.
