Prior to Friday nights Robert Morris University women’s hockey game, head coach Paul Colontino predicted that this weekend’s series would feature two close games, just like last time they met. However, he couldn’t have been more off about game one as the Colonials topped the Purple Eagles by a score of 6-1.

Halfway through the first period, Kelsey Thomas got the team going when she scored her 12th goal of the season.

With just over a minute to go in the first period, Kalli Funk of Niagara beat junior goaltender, Kristen DiCiocco, to tie the game at one.

It didn’t take the Colonials long to respond as freshman Becca Vint tallied her 19th goal of the season, batting the puck out of the air to beat Niagara goalie Sarah Moses.

The Colonials kept the scoring going under nine minutes later when sophomore Thea Imbrogno scored her 12th of the season to extend the lead to two.

“We were on a five on three and we were just playing patty cake at the top with Jos and Kelsey and Kelsey slid it to me low on the left side of the net,” recalled Imbrogno. “I wanted to go back door to Becca so I kind of held it for a couple seconds and then they kind of drifted towards Bri Delaney and Vint so the goalie started to cheat to her right and I shot to her left.”

Junior defenseman, Jamie Joslin extended the lead even further on her fifth goal of the season while the Colonials were on the power play.

Shortly after Joslin’s goal Katie Fergus took a boarding penalty, and was sent to the box for five minutes. The Colonials were able to kill off the penalty, without allowing a shot on goal.

With six minutes remaining in the game, Imbrogno tallied her second goal of the night to increase the lead to four. Three minutes later Vint stole the puck from the Purple Eagles defense, took it in, and scored her second of the game and 20th of the season.

Vint’s goal capped the scoring for the night, and gave the Colonials their 17th win of the season and sixth in College Hockey America (CHA) play.

“We’ve been working a lot on finishing pucks and having poise in front of the net,” said Thomas. “I think that translated a lot into our game and we scored a lot of goals.”

After the first goal DiCiocco and the Colonials defense played shutdown hockey and didn’t allow another goal. DiCiocco finished with 15 saves on the night.

“Chokes has been playing really well and has been making big saves for us,” Thomas said. “We need her to keep us in games, and it helps that as a team everyone is playing well.”

The Colonials will need much of the same effort on Sunday at Niagara to earn their second straight sweep against CHA opponents.

“I think for next game we need to forget about what happened today and not go in overconfident,” Imbrogno said. “We just need to go in and play the same way we played today.”