Quinnipiac opened the 2013-14 season with a lengthy scoring drought, but once the Bobcats located the net, they claimed a 3-1 win on the road at St. Cloud State.<\/p>\n
The top line of Quinnipiac (1-0-1) did all of the damage; sophomore left wing Nicole Connery led the way with a goal and two assists, senior center Kelly Babstock had a pair of helpers and rookie Emma Woods scored twice.<\/p>\n
“I was impressed,” said Bobcats’ coach Rick Seeley. “For a while, we were playing desperate and people were being individuals, trying to make it happen themselves. Then when we really got it together, they just went out and played hockey. I thought we won every shift in the last 10 minutes.”<\/p>\n
On Friday night, goaltending dominated for all 65 minutes with the two teams skating to a scoreless overtime tie.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s plot was only slightly altered early, as the Huskies (0-1-1) took a one-goal lead 9:01 in on a power-play goal by Vanessa Spataro, and the 1-0 lead held up for more than two periods.<\/p>\n
With just over seven minutes remaining, Babstock turned the game when she forced a turnover and slid the puck to Connery, who snapped a shot that beat Katie Fitzgerald’s blocker.<\/p>\n
“Maybe we got lulled to sleep by [Babstock], too,” SCSU coach Jeff Giesen said. “I think the [Olympic-sized] rink was an advantage for us and being able to skate with them. As the game wore on, we kind of worried less about her, and then all of a sudden, she showed up again. She’s dangerous from wherever she is at.”<\/p>\n
The Bobcats had been slowly taking over the game as the third period progressed and they took an extra burst of energy from their first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
“In the third period, we came out harder than we had all weekend,” Bobcats’ junior goaltender Chelsea Laden said. “As a group of girls, we’re learning that we can’t look too far ahead. We have to take each minute and each period super seriously.”<\/p>\n
Two and a half minutes later, Woods took a pass on the weak side and found twine before Fitzgerald could get across.<\/p>\n
Woods added an insurance goal at 17:08, capitalizing off of another turnover and scoring from the low slot.<\/p>\n
“The goals were the result of building on good shifts prior, too,” Seeley said. “Each line played well and then Babstock’s line obviously capitalized for us.”<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac closed out the win without further drama.<\/p>\n
The last best chance for the Huskies came when Amy Olson’s line had multiple whacks at the puck in an attempt to forge a 2-2 tie with just over 3:20 to play. Instead, Laden was able to cover the puck and Woods soon sealed the deal at the other end.<\/p>\n
That made it a happy homecoming for Laden, originally from Lakeville, Minn., and playing in her home state for the first time as a collegian.<\/p>\n
“Until the last eight minutes of the game, it wasn’t looking so hot,” Laden said. “But I’m really proud of the freshmen. They really pulled it together; they didn’t cave in.”<\/p>\n
For St. Cloud State, the game slipped away as the third period wound down.<\/p>\n
“A little bit of our youth and obviously, having some older players play in areas they haven’t played in yet, in different spots and just getting a little tight,” Giesen said. “We took it to them I thought for the first period and a half, for sure. We just played a little bit nervous and then we make two mistakes that end up on the board.”<\/p>\n
Back in the first period, Spataro took a short shovel pass from Molli Mott and smacked it by Laden on the power play for a 1-0 St. Cloud State lead. Michelle Burke made a subtle play from the sidewall to create the two-on-one opportunity down low.<\/p>\n
“Everyone broke down on that penalty kill and left someone wide open on the back door,” Seeley explained.<\/p>\n
Audrey Hanmer clanged the crossbar with a loud slapper late in the second period while on another power play.<\/p>\n
“It can be a goalie’s favorite sound and a goalie’s worst sound depending on where the puck goes after the ding,” Laden said. “It kind of woke me up.”<\/p>\n
“If that goes bar down instead of bar up, we’re up 2-0,” Giesen said.<\/p>\n
Hanmer displayed skills not seen on the Huskies’ blue line in almost a decade.<\/p>\n
“I’d compare her to Kobi Kawamoto,” Giesen said. “She does a lot of the same things. She mirrors Kobi and she can really control [the game].”<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac had an extended five-on-three chance near the end of the second frame, but the Huskies did a good job of getting in the way of shots and Fitzgerald came up with a couple of big saves.<\/p>\n
The Huskies’ Kalli Funk had a point-blank opportunity nine minutes into the third period, but Laden swallowed it up.<\/p>\n
“I was just focused on the next shot and that’s about as much as I could do,” she said.<\/p>\n
Laden recorded 27 saves in earning the victory, while Fitzgerald recorded 29 stops for the Huskies.<\/p>\n
“Chelsea Laden, stepping in as a true starter for the first time in her career, I thought was exceptional,” Seeley said.<\/p>\n
Next up, SCSU heads to Columbus, Ohio, to face Ohio State next Friday and Saturday and Quinnipiac hosts Penn State for two games.<\/p>\n
“A good learning point for us, getting into league play next week,” Giesen said. “[Ohio State is] a good team. I think they’re going to be in the mix all year, so we’ll look back and say it was a good tune-up anyway for us going into league play.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quinnipiac opened the 2013-14 season with a lengthy scoring drought, but once the Bobcats located the net, they claimed a 3-1 win on the road at St. Cloud State. The top line of Quinnipiac (1-0-1) did all of the damage; sophomore left wing Nicole Connery led the way with a goal and two assists, senior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17591"}],"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\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17591"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17600,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17591\/revisions\/17600"}],"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=17591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17591"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}