Clara Billings scored her fifth goal of the season at UW-River Falls. (photo courtesy of BJ Pickard, MIAC)
RIVER FALLS, Wis. – The No. 4 Gustavus women’s hockey team lost its first game of the season 3-1 Wednesday night at No. 7 UW-River Falls. The Gusties move to 8-1-1 overall, while the Falcons improve to 7-2-1.
“We didn’t show up today,” Head Coach Mike Carroll said. We got out-muscled and out-worked. We played against a veteran team that kept coming and we didn’t handle it very well. The positive thing is we hung in there and battled as much as we could in the third period.”
The Falcons started the scoring 7:31 into the first period before the Gusties tied things up with five minutes remaining in the frame. Clara Billings (Fy., Rochester) scored her fifth goal of the season on a power play, assisted by Kristen Cash (Sr., Roseville) and Hailey Holland (Fy., Aberdeen, S.D.), and the score remained 1-1 at the first intermission.
Nearly three minutes into the second period, UW-River Falls scored a short-handed goal for what proved to be the game-winner. The Falcons added an insurance goal at the 13:08 mark and neither team scored in the third for a 3-1 final.
The Falcons outshot the Gusties 35-23. The Gusties went 1-for-3 on the power play and killed off the lone Falcon skater-advantage to remain perfect on the penalty kill this season. Francesca Gerardi (Fy., Yonkers, N.Y.) suffered her first loss of the season after making 32 saves.
“We get another shot at them on Friday so we’ll learn from it and understand that we have to work a lot harder,” Carroll said. “You have to hand it to River Falls, they are a good hockey team and we learned a lot from it and we’ll be ready to go Friday.”
The season series wraps up at 7 p.m. Friday in Saint Peter.