Trinity Falls to #1 Norwich

By D.F. Pendrys on January 4, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

By David F. Pendrys

HARTFORD, CT – The Norwich Cadets, the #1 team in Division 3 Women’s Hockey, defeated the Trinity Bantams 7-1 Wednesday night in non-conference play. Sophie McGovern scored Norwich’s first three goals for a two period hat trick, assisted each time by Amanda Conway (who would have four Assists on the night.) McGovern had scored on a break out halfway through period 1, getting a clean look at Trinity’s Kai-Lilly Karpman. She was able to knock it past the keeper as she swept in. Later in the period at 16:49 she was again in front of the net and scored despite falling down in the process for the 2-0 lead.

In the second Conway started a breakaway up ice with McGovern along with her, Conway fed it across and McGovern deposited it into the back of the net for the 3-0 lead at 5:48. Trinity’s Caroline Howell responded quickly moving in the Norwich zone and smacking a puck past Laurie King of the Cadets with an assist going to Claire Foran at 7:05.

Norwich answered 50 seconds later as Adrieana Rossini controlled the puck by the left boards in the Trinity zone. She sent a perfect centering pass out to Alyssa Hulst in front and in a quick bang bang play she hammered it past the keeper. At 15:08 it was McGovern’s turn to set up a Conway goal and 3 minutes later, Carly Menges slapped a puck from deep and Bryn Labbe deflected it into the twine. Conway had picked up her fourth assist on that play. Finally Sarah Schwenzfeier picked up her 100^th point of her career by adding an “insurance” goal for a 7-1 lead at 18:26 in the third.

Trinity would only manage to get 13 shots on net, and King saved 8 of them. Emily Lambert relieved King in the third and had a clean 4 saves on 4 shots. Norwich had sent 36 shots at Karpman and she came away with 29 saves. King and Lambert weren’t challenge much. Karpman on the other hand had to deal with a lot of high quality chances, and she made plenty of good saves.

McGovern led Norwich with 6 shots, Bryn Labbe had 5, and Conway, Schwenzfeier, Maddi Blauth, and Samantha Benoit all had 3. Kelcie Finn led Trinity with 3 shots, Howell, and Taylor Foy each had 2.

Trinity blocked 13 shots on the night with Taylor Perracchio, Finn, Lauren MacMaster, and Tasha Adams all having 2 apiece. Julia Lee, Kayla Milofsky, Alex Sinson, and Maggie Cusick all had 1. Norwich only had 4 blocks given the shot differential, but Kim Tiberi had 2 of them.

Trinity despite the loss, did hold Norwich for ten minutes without a goal and at times did appear to be at least able to hold their own. The Bantams weren’t able to get many opportunities offensively though and the Cadets eventually outmaneuvered them too often. Trinity to their credit did not give up and was blocking shots and trying to earn some goals despite the great deficit. Norwich was very effective at acquiring the puck in their own zone from Trinity and moving it up ice denying their opponent’s rebounds and creating their own chances. The #1 team in the country sure played like it.

Several Trinity players were noted. Howell, Karinna Cave-Hawkins, Kelcie Finn, and Taylor Foy were seen making numerous efforts in the offensive zone or to get the puck in on the attack. Lauren MacMaster also played a role in this and even went end to end for scoring try at one point.

Defensively, Howell, Taylor Peracchio, Claire Foran, Finn, Maggie Cuasack, and Foy were also noticed for their gains of possession in the defensive end and zone exits. Julia Lee and Tasha Adams each disrupted at least one Norwich scoring effort as well and Lee had several penalty kill clears. Foy at one point whisked the puck out of the goal mouth during chaos in front.

For Norwich, Conway, McGovern, Benoit and Schwenzfeier were not surprisingly very active in the offensive zone in addition to their own scoring plays often either bringing the puck across the blue line or getting to it already in the Trinity end. Robyn Foley, Kim Tiberi, Desirae Kuhlmann, Maddie Tasha, and Muranda Towes also had a variety of either scoring chances or other offensive setups. Foley and Tiberi especially had several attempts on the net. Kulhmann, Tiberi, and Benoit were part of a very effective squad of players who kept the puck from gettng back out of the zone.

Defensively, Rossini was noticed often moving the puck away from danger in the Norwich end as was Tiberi, though the team as a whole did a lot to prevent Trinity from even creating fires to put out.

Norwich rises to 11-0-1 and Trinity drops to 2-6-0. The Bantams take on Connecticut College in a weekend series in New London.

Noticed Plays

These are plays that are noticed during game play. They are not exhaustive. A lot are missed. It ‘s just what is seen. Read any of these as “at least” rather than “total”.Rather than write these out I am providing the raw notes. (A scoring chance doesn’t necessarily generate a shot. I only list the same scoring chance once in a player’s section.)

Key: (If you see one of these letters under a column it means the following.)

A – Led to a scoring chance. TA – Led to a team scoring chance. SC – Scoring Chance TSC – Team Scoring Chance ZE – Zone Entry O – Taken out of D-Zone S – Sent out of D-Zone GM – Out of goal mouth F- Fought it out of D-Zone. N – Led to a zone entry. NA – Led to a zone entry and scoring chance.

Norwich (Larger version here.)