MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. – The No. 8 seeded McKendree University women's hockey team saw its 2021-22 season come to an end here Thursday as the Bearcats fell 4-1 to No. 7 seeded University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) in an elimination game of the ACHA Women's Division I National Tournament in USA Arena at the Centene Community Ice Center.
With the loss, McKendree closes the season with a 10-10 overall record, while UMass improves to 17-6 and advances to Friday's third of action in the national championships.
In Thursday's game, the Bearcats were outshot, 30-20, but the margin was only 18-16 in shots over the final two periods after UMass held a 12-4 edge in shots in the opening period.
UMass got on the scoreboard first in Thursday's game as Saoirse Connolly found the net off passes from Holly Russell and Katerina Nikolopoulos to lead 1-0 at the 11:02 mark of the first period.
Neither team would find the nets the remainder of the first period as UMass led 1-0 after the first 20 minutes of play.
The Bearcats offense got more aggressive in the second period as they recorded nine shots, but none of those shots were able to find the net as the teams did not score in the second period. UMass also had nine shots in the second period.
Midway through the third period, UMass appeared headed to scoring back-to-back goals, but Bearcat senior goalie
Naomi Leasck (St. Louis, Mo./Lindbergh) made two diving stops to keep the puck out of the net and keep the score at 1-0 in UMass' favor.
With about nine minutes left in the game, Connolly would once again find the net to give UMass a 2-0 lead in the game with 11:09 remaining in the contest.
About 36 seconds later, Brianna O'Neill would score off a pass from Rachel Difraia to give UMass a commanding 3-0 lead in the game.
With a little over three minutes left in the game, UMass added a fourth goal by Nicole Maimonis off an assist from Regan Paterson to give UMass a 4-0 lead.
The Bearcats, though, would prevent a shutout as junior forward
Juliana Davis (Onanole, Manitoba/Onanole) found the net with 3.6 seconds left in the game for the Bearcats' lone score of the game. Davis' goal was assisted by freshman defender
Lainy Stienstra (Burlington, Ontario/Burlington Central).
In the third period, UMass held a 9-7 advantage in shots.
Leasck played all 60 minutes in goal for the Bearcats and recorded 26 saves to go along with the four goals she allowed.
Mary Honan played all 60 minutes in goal for UMass and collected 19 saves to go with her one goal allowed.
Neither team was able to take advantage on the power play as each team was 0-for-5 on their power play chances and UMass recorded nearly 21 minutes in penalties for the game, including a five minute major penalty in the second period for tossing a Bearcat player into the boards, while McKendree had just a little over 10 penalty minutes in the contest.
The Bearcats, who are ranked eighth in the ACHA Division I women's rankings, have now played in the ACHA Division I Women's National Championships in three of the last four years as they went 0-2 in 2019, were 0-3 in last year's event and lost both of its games in this year's tournament. The 2020 tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
