Women’s Ice Hockey Looks to Make Playoff Push

Weston Atwood

For The Clock

watwood@plymouth.edu

The Plymouth State women’s ice hockey team is currently 7-12-2 this season, and tenth place in the New England Hockey Con- ference standings. Led offensively by senior Haley Branovan (Canandaigua, NY) with 17 points they’ve seen some strong goaltending in the sophomore Emelie Lindqvist (Gulleråsen, Sweden) who boasts a 90.5 save percentage this season.

Since last issue the Panthers have played 11 games including 10 during Winterim break. Their game against Post on December 10th was dubbed the “Teddy Bear Toss” game where after the Panthers first goal, fans tossed teddy bears onto the ice that were donated to Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth. Branovan had the honors of notching this first goal early in the first period as stuffed animals rained down onto the Hanaway ice.

The Panthers would collect 10 more goals to win the last contest of fall semester 11-0. They would not return to the ice until January 6th when they played a tournament at St. Michaels College. They would beat St. Michaels 4-0 but fall to Hamilton the next day 4-1. Their next game was a tight 4-2 loss to the Norwich Cadets on the road a great showing for the Panthers against a nationally ranked team. The first home game was a contest against the University of New England. It was another back and forth game that saw the Nor’easters leave Hanaway with a 4-3 victory.

The Panthers would finally grab their first win of 2017 with a 1-0 win in overtime up at the University of Southern Maine with the winning goal coming off the stick of Shan- non Hickey (Arlington, Mass). The Panthers would play to their second tie of the season against the Spartans of Castleton University. After three periods, and an extra five minutes over overtime both teams walked away with a 2-2 score.

The Panthers would win a 5-1 contest against Johnson & Wales before losing their last three contests against Franklin Pierce, Southern Maine and Nichols. The Nichols game had quite possibly the strangest endings to a Plymouth game in recent years as when tied 4-4 with a minute remaining in the overtime period, coach Mykul Haun chose to empty the net to give the Panthers a six on five advantage to go for the win, but a bad pass would sneak out of the Bison zone and find the open net giving Nichols the 5-4 victory.

With the Panthers sitting tenth they ha ve some must win games ahead to make playoffs, senior captain Haley Branovan is convinced the team has what it takes to get the job done.

“It's very important that we come together as a team and use everyone's skill and talent to compete this weekend.” Branov an said. “The best games we've played this year have been when everyone is contributing and playing as one,”

The Panthers will host Saint Michaels College tonight at Hanaway Rink before traveling to Umass Boston and the University of New England before finishing the regular season with a home game against Norwich.