By David F. Pendrys

SHELTON, CT – The Sacred Heart Pioneers and the Post University Eagles are two programs on different courses this season. SHU, a program with a long existence, is building a successful season. Post, a relatively new program, is still growing in it’s initial few years. The result of their meeting Friday night was a 10-0 victory for Sacred Heart, but noticeable areas where Post was improving.

First the goals….

Taylor Moreland needed just 25 seconds to put Sacred Heart on the board when she broke into the Post zone and flung a shot by Post’s Ashlynn Neurauter. An assist went to Julianna Lynch.

4 minutes later, Lilly Cleary skated in to Post territory with room to maneuver and launched it to Neurauter’s right unassisted.

Another 6 would go by, with mainly SHU opportunities before Jayne Lewis picked up the next Pioneers goal assisted by Kathryn Darling and Moreland.

2 minutes after that Brittani Mingoia kept the puck within the Post zone and later teed up a shot to the left of the keeper for a 4-0 lead. Assists went to Lexi Edwards and Elizabeth Collins.

The opening onslaught resumed a minute and a half after that as Meghan Kebalka carried the puck into the zone and it eventually got to Brittany Smith who found the back of the net.

Edwards would add a tally from right in front of the net two and a half minutes after that and Neurauter’s day was done after making 12 saves on 18 shots. In would come Danaee St-Germain.

2 minutes after the switch, SHU ‘s Hayley Payne came up with her own zone entry and sent the disc to the side of the net past the new keeper.

Smith would score again at 8:15 after she stick handled well and gained the position she needed to put it home. An assist went to Kebalka as well.

Kebalka would get her own goal 6 minutes later after getting a clean look and launching it top shelf. Payne and Smith had assists on the setup.

The final of the goal of the game came in the third when Sacred Heart was killing off a 5 on 3 penalty. This did not deter Smith from getting the puck in the d-zone and hurrying up the boards and into the Post zone on the break, where she defeated the keeper for a hat trick.

Sacred Heart’s keepers picked up the clean sheet as Devan Kane played for two periods facing 7 shots, and Kayla Walewski faced 10 in the third, but none got past either of them.

St-Germain faced 37 shots in only 24:05 minutes of game time and made 33 saves in a respectable outing. She was challenged often by the Pioneers and came up with numerous saves on quality chances making the last two periods less of a rout.

Moreland and Maddie Bishop led SHU with 8 shots apiece, Smith had 6, and Cleary 5, as many other players contributed to the 55 total shots generated.

Molly Brumfield led Post with 4 shots, and Kendall Fitzgerald had 3, as the others were spread out among several players.

Noticed blocks (official block stats were unavailable. These are just the ones noticed. Much could have been missed.)

SHU: Savannah Hersey (1) Marissa Letizio (2) Lilly Cleary (1) Brittany Smith (1), Brittani Mingoia (1), Kathryn Darling (1)

Post: Kayleigh Miller (2) Molly Brumfield (1) Gwendolyn Lansky (2) Olivia Dupree (1)

Additional notes:

Despite the relatively low shot totals, Post’s Paige Dundas, Kendall Fitzgerald, Molly Brumfleld, Ann Margaret DiSciscio, Sydney Hogan, and Kayleigh Miller generated chances for Post with zone entries and potential scoring attempts. Mikayla Santjer had a sequence late in the game when she had multiple scoring tries all in a row. She, Dundas, Brumfield and Fitzgerald were perhaps the largest threats against SHU tonight.

Post’s Miller, Hogan, Kathleen Takita, Savanna Stevenson, Olivia Dupree, Santjer, and Fitzgerald all had defensive stops at various times. Miller and Dupree were noticed disrupting numerous SHU scoring attempts. Takita had a variety of zone exits, as did Miller and Hogan.

Despite the lopsided score, Post did give up most of the scoring in the first period, and held SHU to only 3 goals in the latter 2, despite the Pioneers not letting up on the attack. Post’s defense backed by St-Germain looked more effective in disrupting SHU even given their offensive potency.

For SHU, Olivia Bryant was especially noticed for keeping the puck within the Post zone to prolong offensive plays. Moreland, Bishop and Smith were among the players with many scoring chances though Letizio, Jordan Sanislo, Bryant, Cleary and others were part of a wide cast of players generating offense.

Defensively, Sacred Heart had less to do on the night, but Bryant still generated numerous zone exits. Mingoia, Sanislo, Savannah Hersey, Bryant, and Edwards disrupted the Post attack as they tried to get opportunities on the keeper.

Sacred Heart rises to 18-5 and Post drops to 2-16-2. The two teams will meet again on the same ice, only SHU will be the home team this time, Saturday afternoon.

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 chances.

Sacred Heart (Larger version here.)

Post (Larger version here.)