Courtesy of RITAthletics.com
ROCHESTER, NY – The RIT women’s hockey team (1-0-0) opened the 2018-19 season in fine fashion, shutting out College of the Holy Cross (0-1-0), 2-0 from the Gene Polisseni Center Friday evening. Bruce B. Bates Women’s Hockey Coach Chad Davis won his first game behind the bench for the Tigers.
Goaltender Terra Lanteigne (Hatchet Lake, Nova Scotia/Charles P. Allen) was strong between the pipes, stopping all 25 shots she faced for her third career shutout. Kendall Cornine (Kinnelon, NJ/Morristown Beard) and Madison Itagaki (Glenview, IL/Chicago Mission) scored first period goals to provide the offense for RIT. Itagaki’s goal was the first of her collegiate career.
RIT out-shot Holy Cross, 27-25. The Tigers were 1-for-5 on the power-play, while holding Holy Cross scoreless in six attempts with the man-advantage. RIT’s penalty-killing unit came up huge late in the third period, killing off 1:26 of a 5-on-3 Holy Cross power-play.
Julia Pelletier made 25 saves in the loss for Holy Cross.
“We are excited to get the win,” said Davis. “We have been working hard over the last few weeks and to get off to the good start at home means a lot to us. It was a tight game, but I thought we did a lot of good things out there tonight.”
Tonight marked the first game behind the bench at RIT for Davis, who was brought in last month. He spent the previous seven seasons at Division III Adrian College, compiling a 150-37-10 record with three trips to the NCAA Tournament, including national runner-up honors in 2017.
The Tigers took a few minutes to get going but dominated the second half of the opening period, scoring twice to take a 2-0 lead, while out-shooting the Crusaders 13-10.
Brittney Gout (Caledon, Ontario/Brampton Canadettes) nearly got RIT on the board 5:30 in, as she ripped a rocket over the shoulder of Pelletier that ricocheted off the crossbar. The play was reviewed and the call on the ice was confirmed.
Cornine would open the scoring 11:42 into the game, taking a feed from Ellie Larson (Hutchinson, MN/Hutchinson Tigers)on the power-play and firing a low, hard shot from the top of the left circle past Pelletier. Mallory Rushton (Amherst, Nova Scotia/New Hampton Prep) also assisted on the goal.
Itagaki would tally her first collegiate goal with three minutes left in the period, firing a rocket from the top of the slot over the shoulder of Pelletier to make it 2-0 Tigers. Brooke Baker (Saline, MI/Saline) dug the puck out behind the net and sent a pass to Tori Haywood (Pickering, Ontario/St. Mary’s Catholic) along the boards. Haywood found Itagaki up top and the freshman defenseman did the rest.
Rushton just missed making it 3-0 a minute later, firing a backhand off a scrum in front off the left post and out.
Neither team would score in the second period, as Lanteigne had to make a couple of key saves to keep it 2-0.
The Crusaders were on a power-play midway through the period when Sam Girard fired a shot that Lanteigne got a piece off, but popped up behind her. Rachel Moore swatted at the puck behind Lanteigne, but slid it through the crease and out.
Logan Land (Turkey Point, Ontario/Holy Trinity Catholic) and Cornine had great chances to up the Tigers lead, but were both denied by Pelletier.
RIT leads the all-time series between the two schools, 12-3-2. Both teams were members of the Division III ECAC East Conference in the early 2000s. Holy Cross is playing its first full season as a member of Hockey East.
The Tigers are now 3-3-1 all-time in season openers at the Division I level.
RIT and Holy Cross conclude the season-opening series at 1 p.m. Saturday from the Gene Polisseni Center.
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