A four-goal second period proved to be the difference in a Wednesday matinee to open the 2016 half of the women’s hockey season, as the Saints beat Merrimack 6-2 in Appleton Arena in their first-ever meeting.
Brooke Webster led St. Lawrence with two goals and two assists on the day, while Amanda Boulier (1G, 2A) and Kailee Heidersbach (2A) also had multi-point games.
With the win the Saints improve to 10-9-1 overall, while Merrimack drops to 3-18-0 in their first season as a Division I program.
“That was the way we wanted to start off the second half of the season,” Head Coach Chris Wells. “Everyone was able to get some shifts in and get their legs back under them after a month off.”
Merrimack controlled the play in the opening minutes of the first period, but momentum shifted to the Saints midway through and then sophomore Hannah Miller gave the home team a 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission with a power play goal; her fifth of the season.
Miller’s slap shot from the top of the right circle beat Warriors’ netminder Samantha Ridgewell high on the blocker side at the 18:42 mark of the first with both Boulier and Webster picking up assists.
Webster extended the lead to 2-0 just 36 seconds into the middle frame when she opted to keep the puck on an odd-man rush with Kennedy Marchment and roofed a shot over Ridgewell’s right shoulder and into the back of the net for her sixth of the season and first of the day.
Senior Abbey McRae stuffed the puck under Ridgewell’s pads from the behind the net just over a minute later for the eventual game winner which made it 3-0 Saints before Merrimack’s Katelyn Rae notched her first of two to spoil the shutout at the 3:30 mark.
Boulier answered with a power play marker at 6:06 of the second, firing a slap shot through traffic and behind Ridgewell for the team’s fourth goal.
Rae’s second goal for Merrimack came just over a minute later, as she once again cut the visitors deficit to two goals.
Later in the period, first-year Nadine Edney buried a rebound in the crease after Ridgewell mishandled a shot from linemate Kayla Nielsen. The goal, Edney’s third of the season, increased the Saints lead to 5-2.
Webster rounded out the scoring midway through the final frame with her second of the day, backhanding a blocked shot inside the near post for the team’s sixth goal.
St. Lawrence finished with a 26-15 shot advantage and were two-for-three on the power play against the Warriors.
First-year goaltender Grace Harrison got the start and the decision for the Saints, making four saves in 20 minutes between the pipes. Sophomore Brooke Wolejko played the second and third periods and finished with nine stops. Ridgewell had 20 saves for Merrimack.
The Saints travel to Brown and Yale this weekend to resume their ECAC Hockey schedule. They enter the weekend in fifth place with a 4-4-0 record against conference opponents.
