HAMDEN, Conn. — Rebecca Vint tallied four points for the No. 8 Robert Morris Colonials as they skated to a 5-1 victory over the No. 10 Quinnipiac Bobcats Saturday afternoon at the High Point Solutions Arena.
Vint scored two goals and two assists, including registering her 100th point of her career on the first goal of the game; she is just the third Colonials player to do that in the club’s history.
The Colonials had another milestone as well, as coach Paul Colontino recorded his 53rd career win as coach to take over the program lead.
Robert Morris took advantage of the special teams as it scored a short-handed goal, two power-play goals and a four-on-four even-strength goal in that second period.
“Number wise, these two teams are so close and so evenly matched on paper that you knew going into it, you don’t know how many penalties or power plays you’re going to get, but you know when you get them on both sides they have to be huge,” Robert Morris coach Paul Colontino said.
Both teams combined for 15 penalties in the game, as the Colonials were 2-7 on the power play while the Bobcats were 0-8.
“I thought our [penalty kill] was very good, in just reading and reacting to their [power-play] because I thought their [power play] was awesome,” Colontino said. “It was just a couple misfires and a few sticks that we were able to get in the lanes of some passes that broke things up, and when we didn’t get that we had great goaltending.”
Quinnipiac had four power plays in the second period alone, but could not convert to match the Robert Morris second period.
“I don’t think our power play’s got a goal this half [of the season] so I didn’t see much,” Quinnipiac coach Rick Seeley said. “We killed off most of their penalties this weekend, so I guess I’m happy with the penalty kill and not so happy with the power play.”
Robert Morris jumped out to a 1-0 just 20 seconds into the second period when Vint cleaned up the rebound off a shot from Kylie St. Louis and tucked the puck past Quinnipiac goaltender Chelsea Laden.
“I thought we showed up kind of the same way as yesterday and I thought we got it together and played pretty well, and then that bad short-handed goal right off the faceoff I thought deflated us,” Seeley said.
The Colonials tallied a second goal 12 minutes later when Rikki Meilleur made it 2-0 as she tucked home a rebound of her own after an Ashley Vesci shot was saved by Laden and the puck squeaked out of her pads and onto the ice in front of the net.
Vint added her second goal of the game with six minutes to play in the second period when she scored on the rebound once again, this time off a shot from Thea Imbrogno, whose shot went high on Laden and bounced in front of the crease.
“Obviously we gave up too many weak goals, but I didn’t think our team responded well to them either,” Seeley said. “I thought we lost our discipline, starting taking some bad penalties and lost our focus, so I think that’s how one turns into four pretty quickly.”
Just 1:52 later Robert Morris made it 4-0 when Anneline Lauziere scored a power-play goal of her own after Vint passed the puck from next to the Quinnipiac goal and Lauziere controlled the puck in the slot before snapping it home.
After the Lauziere goal, Sydney Rossman came into the game in goal for Quinnipiac, replacing Laden.
The Bobcats got one goal back in the third period when Shelby Wignall scored her first goal of the season as she wristed a puck from above the slot where it deflected off a Colonials defender and went five-hole on Robert Morris netminder Jessica Dodds to make it 4-1.
“We knew Quinnipiac was going to come out guns blazing, just because I’d expect nothing less from them, and they did,” Colontino said. “They got a great goal early in the period that set the tone and if we didn’t have our players woken up already, that surely woke them up.”
Imbrogno notched her second point of the day as she closed out the scoring for the Colonials at 5-1 on a breakaway after a blue line to blue line pass from Vint and put the puck past Rossman.
“We’ve got to refocus,” Seeley said. “I think we’ve been kind of riding high and full of ourselves and I think we found our spot. We have to start working harder at the little details if we want to make any noise in the conference playoffs.”
