Saints steal overtime against Engineers

Quinn Wollard started the scoring for the Engineers with two goals in the first quarter, but the St. Lawrence Saints came out swinging, notching goal number four with 8:34 left in the period. The two sides kept the battle close, but turnovers limited the potency of both offenses all game. The Engineers tied a season-high with 24 turnovers, including six failures to clear. However, RPI had no issue dominating draws or getting on the board, and quickly took control of the game.

Megan Shay, Rylie Maready, and Sophie Goddard scored in quick succession to give the Engineers the lead, but Bella Hillman buried a shot for the Saints low and away to tie the game at five. Then, the floodgates opened. Maready and Wollard scored again, followed by Ella Graff and Lauren DeLeo right before halftime, pushing the Engineers’ lead to three.

After RPI scored again two minutes into the second half, they maintained possession by winning control of the draw, but quickly turned it over. A successful Saints’ clear led to a Dana Fernandez goal, cutting the deficit back down to three. Fernandez picked up the hat trick a minute into the fourth, and Charlotte Powell was able to clean up a Fernandez miss a few minutes later to bring the game within one. However, even that would not last, and just 45 seconds after, Liz Evans tied the game at 10. The two teams traded pairs of goals to end the fourth, including number three for Powell and DeLeo, as well as number four for Fernandez.

With 28 seconds left in overtime, Megan Shay had a free-position opportunity to the right of Saint Lawrence goalie Raelynn Bovenzi. Shay darted to the net and tried to sneak a shot into the top corner, but Bovenzi got a piece of it, and it fell wide. The shot opportunity drew DeLeo up to the crease, allowing Evans to slip past and beat her to the point. Evans retrieved the ball from behind the net and proceeded to switch fields. She found Fernandez on an outlet pass, who lobbed the ball 20 yards downfield to Powell through traffic. Powell wove her way through the Engineers’ defense, finally dishing it off to Jacqui Cloutier when she got to the hole. Cloutier pulled a defender up and found a streaking Hillman right in front of the goal. With an expert box out, Hillman corralled the pass and fired a shot just outside the reach of Olivia Kimball. As the Saints celebrated, the clock ticked down from four seconds to zero and put the finishing touches on a miraculous overtime victory for Saint Lawrence.

The loss snapped a four-game win streak for the Engineers and dropped their season record to 9–3. Click here for the box score of the game.