Saints Roll Past Visiting Vermont
Jan. 10: Senior wing Vanessa Emond scored one goal and assisted
on two others and rookie goaltender Carmen MacDonald made some
spectacular saves in earning her sixth straight win as St. Lawrence
University's women's team closed out the non-league portion of its
2011-12 season with a 6-1 win over the University of Vermont at
Appleton Arena Tuesday night.
MacDonald, selected as a CollegeSports360.com Prime Time Performer
for her play in wins over Boston College and Northeastern last
weekend, made her sixth consecutive start. She is the second Saint
athlete to earn the award, which recognizes the top performances
among Division I athletes nationally in a given week. She had three
breakaway saves among her 28 stops in Tuesday's win.
"Carmen has been playing very well and she is obviously a big
reason why we have been successful on the penalty kill lately. We
made a couple of mistakes that gave them some one-on-ones, but she
did a great job of playing each one of them," said Saint coach
Chris Wells. "We also did a good job of getting sticks on passes in
the defensive end and disrupting Vermont's offense."
The Saints finished the non-league portion of their schedule with a
6-3-2 record with all three of the losses coming against top ten
teams. With the win over Vermont they went 4-1-2 against Hockey
East teams with the lone loss to fourth ranked Boston University.
The Saints take a 11-7-3 overall mark into games at Brown and Yale
Friday and Saturday
Grad student Karell Emard and junior Kelly Sabatine wasted little
time in extending their scoring streaks as they collaborated on the
game's first goal just 5:18 into the first period. Sabatine
took a pass in the neutral zone from linemate Rylee Smith and broke
toward the net with Emard streaking toward the far post. Sabatine
drew UVM goalie Roxanne Douville to the right post and fired a goal
mouth pass to Emard, who scored her seventh of the year into the
wide open net. It marked the sixth straight game with a point for
Emard and the fifth straight for Sabatine.
The Saints outshot Vermont 17-8 in the first period with three of
the eight Vermont shots on goal coming from outside the zone.
MacDonald did have to come up big on a breakaway by Vermont senior
Chelsea Rapin with 2:58 to go in the first, but made the blocker
save to keep the Saints in front.
St. Lawrence opened it up in the second period. Sophomore
defenseman Mel Desrochers started a four-goal barrage with her
fifth of the season as her shot from the right point caught the
inside of the far post with Michelle Ng and Bailey Habscheid
assisting at 6:23. The Saints then killed off 54 seconds of UVM
five-on-three power play with the help of a quartet of saves from
MacDonald, and following the penalty kill built a cushion with
goals just 38 seconds apart.
Brooke Fernandez scored the first of the two goals, her sixth of
the season, as she pinched from her defensive position on a rush
and tucked the puck past Douville with Alley Bero picking up the
assist at 11:51. The Saints then won the center ice draw, forced
another in the Vermont end and scored when Emond worked the puck to
Ng who tucked it under the post for her third of the year with
Bailey Habscheid also assisting at 12:29. Habscheid completed the
scoring flurry for the Saints when she tipped a shot from the point
by Fernandez inside the right post with Emond picking up her third
second of the period at 16:41.
Vermont senior wing Chelsea Rapin put Vermont on the board with
1:48 to go in the period as she tucked her own rebound past
MacDonald after the Saint goaltender made the initial save.
Emond completed the scoring at 6:33 of the third when she pounced
on a rebound of a shot by Smith and flipped it over Douville for
her fifth of the season.
The Saints killed off another 1:09 of five on three in the third
period and held Vermont scoreless on five power play attempts. SLU
has now killed 21 of the last 22 opposing power plays.












