With a blowout 7-1 win over Brock University, the women’s hockey team ended its first semester at the Division I level. The Engineers, now 9-1-2, struggled early as Brock actually took the lead and kept it for nearly the entire first period.
After a pep talk by Head Coach John Burke, a different team emerged from the locker room to bury the Canadians in the second period. “We didn’t play with a sense of urgency,” Burke told the team. He also told them to “stay out of the penalty box.”
Captain Sarah Daniel, a junior, led the scoring with a hat-trick.
The penalty boxes were busy with a combined 40 minutes of penalties between the teams.
The Sunday afternoon game started off evenly matched with the Engineers looking like their skates weighed 10 pounds each. The small but physical Brock team was able to put the puck past freshman goalie Emily Ford. Daniel attributed the slow start to coming off a two-week break.
Late in the first period the team was finally looking like they were playing to win. With just over a minute left in the first, sophomore forward Brooke Thompson sent the puck over the Badger goalie to tie the game at one apiece. Freshmen Nicole McDonald and Melissa Boik assisted.
According to Daniel, “A great motivational speech by Coach Burke,” was the trick to turning their play around. She continued, “We just all realized that we weren’t playing up to our potential.” The team came out “refocused” she said, “we rebounded well.”
The team that did not show up to play in the first period exploded for what would become seven unanswered goals by the end of the game. RPI out-shot the Badgers 25-8 in the second. It took less than a minute for Boik to rip a shot over Brock’s goalie. She was assisted on the power play goal by Thompson and freshman Jamie-Lyn Stewart.
Senior Julie Welte tallied another power play goal minutes later, off helpers from sophomore Kelly Barbera and Boik. The Badgers made a goalie switch just before Kari Rabatin scored off an assist by freshman Emily Donowick.
Daniel would be the only one to score for the rest of the game, registering a hat trick by the end of the game.
When she scored her first goal unassisted it brought RPI’s lead to 5-1. She would come back early in the third and pick up a rebound from a shot by sophomore Ellen McNamara to score her second goal of the night. Freshman Jamie Jacquard-Sowa sent the puck to McNamara, and was credited with the assist. She also assisted on the next power play
