By David F. Pendrys

HAMDEN, CT – For the second time in as many games, Quinnipiac’s swift and talented offense went on the attack, generating opportunities on net. But for the second time, since resuming the season after break, the Bobcats came away with a one goal loss, this time to #4 Colgate 2-1 in overtime.

This was in spite of an excellent performance by Abbie Ives in net for the Bobcats. She made 38 saves on the 40 shots she faced and many of those chances were high quality opportunities. With Colgate’s high powered offense able not only to produce shots, but also hold the puck in the QU end for long stretches of time, Ives was a rock. The eventual game winning goal from Colgate seemed like a fluke, compared the high level of play coming from the QU netminder tonight.

Ives spoke after the game about a variety of subjects:

Raquel Pennoyer struck first for Quinnipiac as she made a heads up play to intercept a pass right in front of Colgate’s Julia Vandyk and she beat the keeper for the lead at 13:45 in the first.

Quinnipiac would hold Colgate scoreless through the rest of the first and second periods getting halfway through the third before the Raiders responded at 9:24 on the power play, when Malia Schneider skated out of the corner and right across the net broadside style and lifted the puck past Ives to even the game up assisted by Annika Zalewski (Buffalo Beauts draft pick) and Lauren Wildfang.

With neither side finishing the other off, to overtime the teams went and there Megan Sullivan moved into the zone slowly seconds into the period and a dribbler somehow got past the keeper to win it for Colgate.

Pennoyer spoke after the game about the goal and what the team needs to do to turn things around and get more scoring:

The game was an interesting mix, Quinnipiac seemed to have the upper hand for a time, but then Colgate put on a lot of pressure, yet couldn’t get anything for it. QU, which had also struggled with finishing as of late, was also not finding the back of the net and the effective Colgate defense was limiting their chances. Colgate even managed to hit two pipes in the second, after lining up good shots. It was a case of two explosive offenses not being able to best the goalies. The defenses were kept busy and each side had plenty of swift skaters.

Quinnipiac Head Coach Cassandra Turner spoke about the challenges the team was facing and what they had to do about them, as well as the impact of players like Pennoyer and Laura Lundblad. Lundblad had been especially active on offense tonight, creating a lot of zone entries and potential chances:

For Quinnipiac, the usual suspects were leading the team in shots as Melissa Samoskevich, Kenzie Lancaster, Pennoyer, and Taylor House all had 3. Grace Markey, Laura Lundblad, and Kenzie Prater had 2. This group was also noticed for being catalysts throughout the game. Some of QU’s other impact players did not muster that many attempts.

For Colgate, the wealth was really spread out. Jessie Eldridge had 6 shots, Shae Labbe 5, Bailey Larson, and Shelby Perry had 4, and Megan Sullivan, Breanne Wilson-Bennett, Olivia Zafuto, Kaila Pinkney, Zalewski, Schneider, and Coralie Larose all had 3 each.

Samoskevich and Lundblad had a large number of zone entries, and House kept the puck in the Colgate zone at least four times if not more. Lundblad was also incredibly active on defense skating or sending the puck out very often. She also stole the puck within the offensive zone for a scoring chance as well. Samoskevich also did a lot defensively to get zone exists. Kati Tabin did a great deal on defense to thwart the Raiders as well. Also of note, Kate MacKenzie disrupted at least Colgate scoring chances herself.

For Colgate, in addition to shots, Zafuto, Sullivan, Eldridge, Zalewski, Bailey Larson, Coralie Larose, and Labbe were especially noticed with zone entries and other offensive acquisitions. Zafuto also kept the puck in the zone an extraordinary amount of times. On the defensive side, Shelby Perry, Schneider, Jackie Leone, and Kaila Pinkney were noted for their zone exits. Lauren Wildfang also disrupted at least two QU scoring attempts.

Quinnipiac, now 11-10-2 and 7-6-0 in the ECAC, faces Cornell Saturday afternoon. Colgate rose to 16-3-1 and 7-2-0 in the ECAC and faces Princeton Saturday.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Larger versions at the Facebook Page gallery.

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. PK- On PK PP – On PP  C- Centering Pass DT  – Led to a defensive start. NA- Led to a zone entry and scoring chance.

Quinnipiac (Larger version here.)

Colgate (Larger version here.)