A 3-2 win over the Quinnipiac Bobcats capped off the women’s inaugural season of Division I hockey. The women finished with a strong winning record of 18-6-2 after starting off undefeated for 11 games.
In goal, senior Rosina Schiff improved her records this week; the books show Schiff playing the most games (65), starting the most games (62), winning the most games (40), having the most shutouts (15), and recording the most minutes played (3647). Despite a below-average year, Schiff still has RPI’s all-time highest save percentage (.938) and is ranked 10th in all of D-I hockey.
Modest and always one to let her stats do the talking, she had nothing to say after breaking several of the records. Her teammates, however, were energetic and gave her much-deserved credit for their phenomenal success this season. “A lot of our wins are attributed to her goaltending. She always steps it up for us,” said freshman Nicole McDonald, who led the team with 17 goals. “Solid goaltending,” described sophomore Brooke Thompson, who finished the year strong, undeterred by broken bones.
“Rosina was outstanding for us, and actually she kept us in the game the first period,” said RPI Head Coach Jon Burke on Schiff’s record-breaking game against top-ranked Division III Plattsburgh two weekends ago.
Against Quinnipiac (10-16-5) on Saturday, Schiff battled through an unfortunate goal two minutes into the game to keep the scoring to a minimum while both teams took 24 shots on net during the night. A shot from barely inside the neutral zone took a weird bounce over Schiff’s glove to give the Bobcats the early lead in RPI’s shutout loss.
After a tame and scoreless second period, the Bobcat offense came alive and scored two goals making the final score 3-0. Quinnipiac junior Vicky Graham scored the first goal on Schiff making it 2-0 at 5:46. Quinnipiac’s power play tallied the last goal at 10:22 of the third, bringing the final score to 3-0.
Although the Bobcats needed only 2:35 to tally an early goal, Sunday afternoon’s “Senior Day” turned out much better for the Engineers. In fact, it took only 16 seconds for freshman Jamie Jacquard-Sowa to respond, scoring off a pass from junior captain Sarah Daniel. Her goal tied the game at one apiece. Before the first period was finished, RPI added two more, taking a healthy lead. McDonald scored the first of the two off an assist from freshman Jamie-Lynn Stewart. Finally, Daniel brought the score to 3-1 with just 52 seconds left in the stanza.
Out-shooting RPI 10-4 during the second and 33-21 during the game, the Bobcats were stopped by Schiff who was able to preserve the win, only letting Graham score. The third period saw Schiff working again to make sure the seniors won their last game, 3-2.
The Engineers’ season is finished as they are not eligible for postseason play this year, but with another year of strong recruits and experience playing at the D-I level, the team is set to excel through next year and make a strong playoff run next March.
