DE PERE, Wis. – The No. 5-ranked Gustavus women’s hockey team got back to game action Friday night after 27 days off since its last competition, shutting out St. Norbert 3-0 to improve to 9-1-1 overall. A power play goal in the first period proved to be the game-winner and the Gusties added two insurance goals in the second for the three-goal decision.
“We came back last week for a couple days to get some practices in and then sent the players home for a couple days. We thought that might benefit us since especially the last couple years we only played one game the first weekend back from the holiday break,” Head Coach Mike Carroll said. “We wanted to make sure we were able to get the experience of a series so we can be ready for conference next week. It was just to try and knock the rust off and you can never duplicate what you do in practice until you get in the game situation. We did a lot of good things today and shook off some rust. Hopefully tomorrow we can be a little more consistent from start to finish but overall it was good game.”
Kristen Cash (So., Roseville, Minn.) scored her first career game-winning goal halfway through the first period with the help of Erica Power (Sr., Lakeville, Minn.) and Laine Fischer (Jr., Northfield, Minn.). Kaitlyn Klein (Sr., Plymouth, Minn.) then tallied her team-leading 10th goal of the season 5:51 into the second period, assisted by Diana Draayer (Sr., Deephaven, Minn.) and Sydney Henrichs (Fy., Eden Prairie, Minn.). And with two seconds remaining in the second frame, Laura Johnson (Sr., Chanhassen, Minn.) scored her second goal of the season with an assist from Draayer.
The Gusties outshot the Green Knights 40-8, the largest difference of the season, and shut down two power play opportunities by the home team. Amanda DiNella (Jr., Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.) made eight saves in 47:13 of work, while Paige Press (Jr., Cottage Grove, Minn.) finished off the game without facing a shot.
The Gusties and Green Knights wrap up the series at 2 p.m. tomorrow.