Nadine Edney scored three goals for her first career hat trick and Grace Harrison made 30 saves to lead the fourth-ranked St. Lawrence University women’s hockey team to a 4-0 win over Yale University in an ECAC Hockey contest on Friday night at Ingalls Rink in New Haven, Conn.
The win was the ninth in a row for the Saints and improved on the team’s program-record start. The Saints are now 12-0-1 and 7-0-0 in ECAC Hockey contests. The previous best start for the team through 13 games was an 11-0-2 mark in the 2005-06 season. Yale fell to 4-4-1, 2-4-1.
“We were fortunate to catch Yale with a couple key injuries,” said head coach Chris Wells ’92. “Overall it felt like a pretty even game and we were able to capitalize on some opportunities to come away with a 4-0 win.”
Edney scored her first goal halfway through the first period, deflecting a blast from Amanda McClure past Yale goaltender Kyra O’Brien to give the Saints a 1-0 lead. Emily Middagh started the play with a hard shot that deflected off a defender and went right to McClure at the point.
Early in the third period, she scored her second when Middagh centered the puck in the slot from behind the Yale goal. Edney fought through a Yale defender and found an opening to give the Saints a 3-0 lead.
Edney completed the hat trick halfway through the third period, again parking out right in front and lifting the puck over O’Brien’s glove for her sixth goal of the season to cap the scoring..
Hannah Miller also scored for the Saints, taking a pass from Brooke Webster off a defensive zone faceoff and skating through the neutral zone to create a 2-on-2 break with Kennedy Marchment. Miller and Marchment connected on a give-and-go, with Marchment finding Miller streaking towards the far post for her sixth goal of the season.
Webster’s assist on the play extended her point-scoring streak to 16 consecutive games, dating back to the Saints’ second ECAC Hockey quarterfinal game against Princeton on Feb. 27, 2016.
Middagh and Kalie Grant both had two assists for the Saints.
The shutout was Harrison’s fifth of the seasons, and it was perhaps her most impressive performance of the season. Yale entered the weekend as the nation’s top scoring offense, averaging 3.88 goals per game, with Phoebe Staenz and Krista Yip-Chuck ranked second nationally in scoring behind only Marchment. In the game’s final minutes, Harrison made several key stops and the Saints’ defense blocked several shots to preserve the shutout, as St. Lawrence killed off two late Yale power plays, including a 61-second 5-on-3 advantage. The Saints have now killed off 23 consecutive power plays and haven’t allowed a power play goal since October 21.
“Yale certainly came at us right from puck drop with a lot of speed and created a lot of chances,” said Saints’ head coach Chris Wells ’92. “Grace did a great job keeping the puck out of the net with some nice saves and we blocked some shots in front of her as well. It felt like that (Staenz, Yip-Chuck and Eden Murray) line created a lot of offense and set the pace of the game and made us adjust to their level. We were able to get some real good efforts from all our lines, Edney’s in particular.”
The shutout was the sixth of the year for the Saints, who have now played 145 minutes, one second without allowing a goal. Brooke Wolejko and Sonjia Shelly combined to shut out Union in St. Lawrence’s last game.
O’Brien made 26 saves in her first action of the year for the Bulldogs, as both teams registered 30 shots on goal.
St. Lawrence will head to Providence, R.I., to face Brown at Meehan Auditorium on Saturday at 3 p.m., then will face Penn State for a pair of non-conference games on Monday and Tuesday next week.
