Senior captain Kirsten Padalis scored two goals, added two assists and blocked three shots to lead the fourth-ranked St. Lawrence University women’s hockey team to a 5-0 win over Brown University in an ECAC Hockey contest at Meehan Auditorium in Providence, R.I., on Saturday afternoon.
With the win, the Saints improved on their record-setting start to the season; St. Lawrence is now 13-0-1, 8-0-0 in ECAC Hockey contests and have allowed just two goals in eight league games. The win was the 10th in a row for the Saints, who are tied with Clarkson for first place in the conference standings. St. Lawrence is also the only team in the unbeaten team in the nation, as both top-ranked Wisconsin and fifth-ranked Colgate lost games on Friday night.
“Another solid effort from top to bottom,” said head coach Chris Wells ’92. “It was nice to see our D get rewarded on the score sheet tonight after some great efforts over the past few weeks.”
In addition to Padalis’ career day, fellow blueliner Amanda McClure scored a goal and Alex Moore picked up an assist.
Brooke Wolejko and Sonjia Shelly combined to make 20 saves to post the team’s third shutout in a row, and the seventh for the season. The last time St. Lawrence allowed a goal was the second period of their game against Rensselaer on Nov. 11, a stretch of 204 minutes, 59 seconds.
For the 11th time in 14 games this season, the Saints struck first, taking a 1-0 lead less than seven minutes into the first period. After an offensive zone faceoff win, Kayla Vespa took a pass from Padalis and found open space in the slot before ripping a wrist shot at the Brown goal. Brown goaltender Monica Elvin turned the initial shot aside, but Justine Reyes found the rebound and snapped a shot into the wide open net for her sixth goal of the season.
Kayla Nielsen gave the Saints a 2-0 lead late in the second period, picking up a rebound right in the slot and floating the puck over Elvin’s shoulder for her second goal of the season. Padalis got the play started, with Reyes taking the initial shot off her centering pass.
Padalis scored the Saints’ third goal less than three minutes later, just six seconds into a power play after Brooke Webster won an offensive zone faceoff to Hannah Miller. Miller fed the puck back to Padalis at the point, and Padalis floated to her left between the faceoff circles, faked a shot to get an open look and wristed a high shot into the left side of the net for her third goal of the year.
With the assist, Webster has now recorded at least one point in 17 straight games, dating back to the Saints’ second ECAC Hockey quarterfinal game against Princeton last season on Feb. 27, 2016.
Padalis scored her second of the game with the teams skating four-on-four. Webster found Marchment behind the red line on the right side, and Marchment skated behind the net and fed Padalis, who was all alone at the left faceoff circle. Padalis sailed a wrist shot over Elvin’s glove into the top right corner to give the Saints a comfortable four-goal lead.
McClure capped the scoring with a power play goal near the midway point of the third period with a hard slap shot from the top of the left faceoff circle that whistled just inside the far post for her second goal of the season. Moore and Vespa picked up assists on the play.
St. Lawrence outshot Brown (3-8-0, 1-7-0) 36-20 and was 2-for-5 on the power play. The Saints killed off both of the Bears’ power play opportunities, extending their run of consecutive penalties killed to 24.
The Scarlet and Brown head to State College, Pennsylvania to face Penn State for a pair of non-league games on Monday and Tuesday.
