Photo by Carter Kegelman

After a rough start, it appears that the Lady Saints have turned a corner and hit their stride. Now, 3-1-1 in their last five games, the Saints have climbed back into contention and are now ranked 10th in the nation. Assistant captain Brittony Chartier ’12 spoke about why the Saints have now begun to turn things around: “It was just persistence, we kept pushing forward and realized we were doing some good things. We just tried to build off of those and looked to improve every week.” On Friday night the Saints defeated Princeton 3-1 and tied Quinnipiac 2-2 on Saturday, both at Appleton Arena.

In the first period versus Princeton, the Saints jumped to the lead as Kayla Sullivan ’13 opened the scoring off of some fancy passing set up by Assistant Captain Britni Smith ’10 and Michelle Ng ’13. The Saints would not score again until the third, however, as Ng scored a goal assisted by Ally Bero ’12 and assistant captain Courtney Sawchuk ’10.

The Saints would cap their scoring with another goal by Sullivan that was once again assisted by Smith. On Saturday, the Saints fought to a tie against a resilient Quinnipiac team. Of the many aspects of the team, Chartier went on to say, “I think that the defense is underrated to be honest. They do a great job of containing players and keeping people to the outside and away from the net. It definitely makes my job a lot easier.” It was the defense who helped contain Quinnipiac and hold them to only two goals, despite their 28 shots on net.

Scoring for the Saints in the first frame was Vanessa Emond ’12 who scored her team leading 11th goal of the season. Assisting on the goal was Josee Belanger ’12 and captain Tara Akstull ’10. Despite having the lead going into intermission the Saints were not able to hold off Quinnipiac, who managed to get ahead on two unanswered goals in the second period.

Their lead would be short-lived, however, as Jamie Goldsmith ’13 would tie the game less than 5 minutes into the period with her fifth goal of the year. Assisting on the goal were Ally Bero and Vanessa Emond.

The Saints will play top-ranked Mercyhurst this weekend in a pivotal series. Stay tuned for games against Rensselaer and Union over break.

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