In their regular season openers, St. Lawrence and Northeastern skated to a 2-2 tie. The game was fast paced and play was only stopped twice during overtime.
Even though Northeastern took it to SLU in the first, according to Saints coach Chris Wells, St. Lawrence opened the scoring early in the first period on the power play.
The goal began when junior Brooke Webster fired a stretch pass from deep in her own zone to her line mate, sopho-more Kennedy Marchment. Marchment, skating just ahead of the Northeastern defender took a shot from the low slot that was initially stopped but she tapped the rebound over Northeastern goalie Brittany Bugalski’s right pad to give SLU the lead.
“It was a great pass to me from Brooke, and even though the defender lifted my stick I just wanted to get the puck on net. It was a lucky bounce,” said Marchment.
The first period would end with the score reading a goal apiece, but that stat changed quickly with the start of the second.
Just 56 seconds into the middle frame, Shelby Herrington released a quick snapshot from the left face-off circle that beat Saints goalie Grace Harrison high blocker, giving Northeastern the 2-1 lead on the power play.
Similar to the first, SLU evened the game around the 13 minute mark of the second period when Marchment scored her second goal of the game, a performance that earned her the games first star.
SLU captain, Amanda Boulier shuttled the puck to sophmore Jenna Marks on the blue line with SLU on the power play.
Marks’ slapshot was deflected by Marchment past Bugalski. “It was a great pass from Marks and an easy deflection. A great pass and it worked out well.”
Overall, Bugalski felt his team played well, despite today being their first game, unlike SLU, who beat McGill on Wednesday in an exhibition contest. “We need to clean up our special teams a bit but I liked the way we played without having any exhibition games”
Meanwhile, the Saints played a trio of goalies including Brooke Wolejko, Grace Harrison and Sonja Shelly, who played the first, second and third periods respectively.
After the game, Shelly, who made 11 saves in the third period and two in overtime said, “It felt amazing to be in net with the game on the line. I tried not to think about it being overtime because then you tense up. I just wanted to make the saves to keep the team in the game.”
Wells was pleased with the way his team played. “As the game went on, our kids started to find some pace. That was a fantastic opening game, and that’s the reason we play the kind of open-ing schedule we do, to get us ready.”
Wells also commented on the way his goalies performed, saying they all played excellent given the unusual situation, in which no one goalie has distin-guished herself as the starter. “I’m happy for all the goalies. We had a great meeting yesterday, they all have a great mindset. It starts with their leader, the one who doesn’t dress, Mikaela Thompson. She has set the culture for the goalies. Their attitudes are great.”