BY RANDY SCHULTZ –
BUFFALO, NY – The Buffalo Beauts exploded for seven goals and goaltender Shannon Szabados turned aside 22 shots to defeat the Connecticut Whale, 7-0 at KeyBank Rink Saturday afternoon.
The Beauts have now held the Whale scoreless for six consecutive period, having blanked them last weekend in Connecticut, 4-0. Nicole Hensley was the Beauts netminder for that contest.
“I think we may have the best D-corps in the league,” said Szabados. “It makes it so easy on us (goalies). It’s playing the puck, keeping shots to the outside. They are really fun to play behind.”
Leading by three, the Beauts broke the game wide open in the third period, scoring four goals. Lisa Chesson ((5:44), Hayley Scamurra (8:33), Julianna Iafallo (12:22) and Corinne Buie (14:33) all scored for Buffalo. The Beauts outshot the Whale in each period, including the final period, 10-9, and for the game, 34-22.
“We’re definitely happy,” said Beauts head coach, Ric Seiling. “We’re still learning our players.
“We weren’t too happy with the second period, the way we preformed. We knew that we were a better team than we showed in the second period.
“We made a couple of changes and tried a couple of different things and all of a sudden it lit up again. As coaches we’re still learning and in the process of who plays well together. We made those changes going into the third.”
Buffalo added a goal in the second period when Maddie Elia scored at 10:59. The Beauts dominated play again outshooting the Whale 9-5 for the period and 24-13 for two periods.
The Beauts jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Savannah Harmon at 9:48 and Annika Zalewski a little more than a minute later (10:54). Buffalo dominated play in the period, outshooting Connecticut 15-8.
NOTES: With her assist on Zalewski’s goal and her own goal Hayley Scamurra has six points in the first two regular season games for the Beauts…Whale’s starting goaltender Meeri Raisanen was pulled at the 8:33 mark of the third period, giving up five goals on 29 shots.
