{"id":171835731,"date":"2018-03-16T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/03\/16\/elmira-vs-plattsburgh-2\/"},"modified":"2018-03-16T22:14:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T03:14:52","slug":"elmira-vs-plattsburgh-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/2018\/03\/16\/elmira-vs-plattsburgh-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Elmira ends Plattsburgh championship run in double OT, 3-2, on Stawinski’s hat trick"},"content":{"rendered":"

NORTHFIELD, Vt.<\/strong> — A new Division III women’s hockey champion will be crowned Saturday, after a 3-2 win in double overtime by the Elmira Soaring Eagles ensured that Plattsburgh will not win a fifth consecutive title.<\/p>\n

“It was an incredible hockey game and certainly could have gone either way,” Elmira coach Tim Crowley said.<\/p>\n

Elmira trailed 2-0 entering the final period before a hat trick by junior left wing Shannon Stawinski earned victory for the Soaring Eagles.<\/p>\n

Scoring began early for the Cardinals, with senior right wing Kayla Meneghin getting the opening goal 40 seconds into the game.<\/p>\n

While Elmira goaltender Kelcey Crawford admitted that the goal was demoralizing, she was able to regain confidence and hold Plattsburgh to one goal at intermission.<\/p>\n

“We’re only down one,” Crawford said. “We’ve gotten a goal before.”<\/p>\n

Outshot 12-8 in the first, Elmira came out of the locker room prepared for a more even period.<\/p>\n

“We were a little nervous, I thought, for the first 20,” Crowley said. “After that, I thought we started playing our style of play.”<\/p>\n

Despite the improved play by Elmira, a goal by senior defenseman Lizzy Viola gave the Cardinals a 2-0 advantage after two periods.<\/p>\n

Entering the third period, Crowley knew his team was prepared mentally to come back from the deficit.<\/p>\n

“I think we have a good leadership group,” Crowley said. “They said a lot of great things before I even got in the locker room.”<\/p>\n

A goal by Strawinski three minutes into the period brought the game to within one. Her play was the product of confidence in her team.<\/p>\n

“I said going into this weekend that we weren’t losing, and that was the mindset from early on,” Stawinski said.<\/p>\n

Strawinski scored again with 4:07 remaining in regulation to force overtime.<\/p>\n

Plattsburgh regained composure after giving up the lead and outshot the Soaring Eagles 12-9 in the first overtime period. Crawford credited her team with helping her deal with the pressure.<\/p>\n

“I think that it came from my team, them giving me a pat on the pads non-stop and saying ‘we’ll get one for you,'” Crawford said. “I knew that I just had to give them a little bit of time. I didn’t mind taking a few extra ones.”<\/p>\n

After a scoreless first overtime, Strawinski completed the hat trick 15 minutes into the second extra period.<\/p>\n

“That’s hockey,” Plattsburgh State head coach Kevin Houle said. “It’s a bounce of the puck. At the end of the day, they made their one count more than we did.”<\/p>\n

The goal ended Plattsburgh hopes of earning a record fifth straight national championship.<\/p>\n

“There’s no shame in losing,” Houle said. “It was going to happen sooner or later.”<\/p>\n

After the first playoff loss of her career, Plattsburgh senior captain Melissa Sheeran hoped that the game would be a learning experience for the returning Cardinals.<\/p>\n

“Remember how this feels, because you never want this feeling and you never want it to happen again,” Sheeran said.<\/p>\n

The victory means Elmira will play in Saturday’s national championship game. Crowley was confident his team would be ready despite playing 95 minutes of hockey today.<\/p>\n

“When the puck drops tomorrow we’re going to be prepared and ready to go, and certainly confident in this group,” Crowley said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NORTHFIELD, Vt. — A new Division III women’s hockey champion will be crowned Saturday, after a 3-2 win in double overtime by the Elmira Soaring Eagles ensured that Plattsburgh will not win a fifth consecutive title. “It was an incredible hockey game and certainly could have gone either way,” Elmira coach Tim Crowley said. Elmira […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[803,875],"coauthors":[835],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171835731"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171835760,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835731\/revisions\/171835760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171835731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171835731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171835731"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=171835731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}