RMU women’s hockey wins 2-0 on Halloweekend
Photo credit: David Auth
October 27, 2018
PITTSBURGH — A special family weekend and Halloween homestand wrapped up for the Robert Morris University Colonials women’s hockey team (4-5-1, 2-1-1). The team played Lindenwood (1-6-1, 0-3-1) in back-to-back home games Friday and Saturday. Friday resulted in a 2-2 tie in double overtime, but this afternoon the Colonials got the win with a solid 2-0 victory at home at Colonials Arena.
The game started slowly for both teams with some blind passes, turnovers and unstable defense at times, but no goals were a result of this. Both teams seemed to have issues with their breakouts and getting the puck out of their own zone at times. Luckily RMU possesses many strong skating defensemen such as Kirsten Welsh who could help carry the puck into the offensive zone when needed.
“I think it was probably just a little lack of communication, our wingers did not communicate enough with our D and vice versa; we knew we had to settle things down and once we started we ended up getting two goals out of it,” stated Caitlyn Sadowy who had the second of Robert Morris’ goals.
Robert Morris dominated in this contest and outshot Lindenwood 40-17. Most of these shots came from the blueline as RMU’s defense tallied 13 shots on goal alone, being led by senior Kirsten Welsh with five and sophomore Emily Curlett with six.
Getting pucks to the point and getting shots off of it was mainly a result of a phenomenal effort in the faceoff dot by RMU’s centers. In total, RMU went 40/64 in the faceoff dot for 62%. They were led by junior Jaycee Gebhard who went 17/24 for an excellent 70%.
Despite all of this, no goals were scored in the first two frames of this contest, as both goaltenders were excellent. Lauren Bailey went on to earn her first shutout of the season with 17 saves. Head coach Paul Colontino praised Bailey after the game with the following comments.
“I think shutouts are the epitome of consistency you have to put together 60 minutes of hockey and she has been able to focus and bear down for every period so it’s exciting.”
Twenty-six shots were fired at opposing goaltender Jolene Debruyn through two periods, but none were able to find the back of the net. RMU kept battling through and was able to get their first tally with a third period goal by Jaycee Gebhard. Gebhard got her fifth goal of the young season with assists from Lexi Templeman and Kirsten Welsh.
“I think when we finally had that (goal) happen we had a little more confidence and played with a little more poise. It would be nice on our end if we could get a goal or two earlier in the game to give ourselves some of that freedom to play a little bit looser,” stated head coach Colontino.
Right after the Gebhard goal, it was the aforementioned Caitlyn Sadowy who scored right after a penalty kill that resulted from too many players on the ice. She came right out of the box and was set up for a nice breakaway pass on which she capitalized with a shot that went top right corner and made the lead 2-0.
Lindenwood was then out of the game officially as their late opportunities with their own net empty fell short, and RMU took this one 2-0.
“The whole team showed up, we had phenomenal goaltending, our D was very good at moving the puck and playing steady,” said Colontino.
RMU now has a week off before traveling to Rochester NY for their two-game series against RIT which will begin Friday at 6:00 pm.
