Sunday, October 17, 2010

Women's Hockey - New Hampshire (15 Oct)

RPI had just a single game this weekend, as they played the New Hampshire Wildcats at Houson Field House on Friday night. A close game, which was tied at one, two, and three, saw UNH take the lead for the last time late in the third period. Despite a late RPI power play and extra attacker, New Hampshire held onto the one goal lead late in the game to leave Troy with a 4-3 victory.

New Hampshire

Smelker/Vandegrift/Harrison
Padmore/Dunlop/Horton
Sanders/Jakubowski/O’Keefe
Letuligasenoa/Guillemette /Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Marzario
Daniel/Stapleton

Van der Bliek

The first period started out in New Hampshire’s favor, as freshman Nicole Gifford put a puck past Sonja van der Bliek in the early going to give UNH a 1-0 lead just 4:25 into the game. The Engineers peppered the UNH net with shots, recording 11 in the frame to UNH’s six, but it wasn’t until the final two minutes of the period that RPI would find the back of the net. Jordan Smelker took a pass from Katie Daniels and snuck a shot over the glove of UNH netminder Kayley Herman to tie the game at one, at 18:27. Just 55 seconds later, Kendra Dunlop intercepted a UNH pass during a line change and skated in one-on-one, beating her defender and scoring at 19:22 to give the Engineers a lead heading into the locker room.

The momentum didn’t carry through the intermission for the Engineers, as Courtney Birchard lobbed a shot in from the far side of the faceoff dot which snuck past van der Bliek only 1:15 into the second period to tie the game at two. The second period saw UNH pick up the pace and put 11 shots of their own on goal, and one of those at the 10:25 mark beat van der Bliek to give the Wildcats their one goal lead back, 3-2. Jill Vandegrift tied the game once again for the Engineers five minutes later after taking a pass from Daniels and skating down the right side to send a shot past Herman to make it 3-3.

New Hampshire scored again near the midpoint of the third period to take a 4-3 lead, and that one would stand despite RPI’s late power play opportunity and extra attacker. The Engineers only managed three shots on goal during the 34-second 6-on-4 advantage and Herman stopped each to hang on for the win.

Smelker led the Engineers in shots on goal with six, while Vandegrift and Dunlop each finished with five. Total shots in the game ended up in a near dead heat, with RPI tallying 30 to UNH’s 29.

RPI hits the road next weekend for a pair of games against Hockey East opponents. The Engineers will face off against Providence at 7pm Friday at Schneider Arena before traveling to Boston’s Matthews Arena for a Sunday afternoon game against the Northeastern Huskies at 1pm. Providence should prove a difficult test for RPI, as the Friars have already defeated SLU (6-1), Clarkson (5-0), and Colgate (2-1) on the way to their current 5-1 record. Northeastern has had more mixed results thusfar, squeaking out a 3-2 overtime win over Union and losing 4-0 to Quinnipiac as part of their current 3-1-1 record.

Neither game will be carried on WRPI next weekend, however Providence will have subscription audio available while Northeastern will have streaming audio and subscription video available as well. I will be live tweeting updates from Matthews Arena for Sunday’s game on the Without a Peer twitter feed, http://www.twitter.com/without_a_peer.

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RPI vs. New Hampshire
Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/15/10 – 7:00pm
UNH 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:

RECAPS:

RECORD: 0-3-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Oct. 22 – at Providence (7pm)
Oct. 24 – at Northeastern (1pm)
Oct. 29 – at SLU (7pm)
Oct. 30 – at Clarkson (4pm)
Nov. 5 – Princeton (7pm)
Nov. 6 – Quinnipiac (4pm)

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