Women's Hockey | 10/5/2017 8:32:00 PM

PITTSBURGH -- The Robert Morris University women's hockey team officially begins its 13th NCAA Division I season, and also its 13th as a member of College Hockey America, with a non-conference series at Mankato Saturday and Sunday. Faceoff from the Verizon Center is set for 2:00 p.m. Saturday, with the Sunday contest beginning at noon.

RMU will meet the Mavericks (1-0-1) for the first time since the 2011-12 season, when head coach Paul Colontino took over the Robert Morris women's program. The Colonials were victorious in overtime, 4-3, at the RMU Island Sports Center Oct. 14, 2011 before bowing 3-1 on home ice the next day. They are 3-3-1 all-time against Minnesota State University and 12-27-6 all-time versus Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) teams.

Robert Morris, coming off its first-ever regular-season CHA championship, second CHA Tournament title all-time and first-ever NCAA Tournament berth, is 3-3-0 in season-opening games under Colontino, the 2016-17 CHA Coach of the Year, who signed a four-year extension Aug. 24.

#9/9 Robert Morris at Mankato - Oct. 7-8
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Key Notes

Robert Morris enters the 2017-18 regular season ranked No. 9 in both the USCHO.com Division I Women's Poll and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Women's College Hockey Poll. It debuted at No. 10 in the initial USCHO preseason poll Sept. 18, the first preseason top-ten ranking in program history, and it also came in at No. 10 in the first USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine preseason poll Sept. 19. The Colonials have been nationally ranked in at least one major poll in each of the last 16 sets released, dating back to the 2016-17 season, and they have cracked 14 consecutive USCHO top tens.

Redshirt senior Brittany Howard scored two goals for RMU in its Sept. 23 win over Ryerson of Canada's Ontario University Athletics conference. Also starring for the Colonials in their lone preseason tilt were fellow forwards Lexi Templeman, whose first unofficial collegiate goal proved to be the game-winner, and Caitlyn Sadowy, who opened the scoring in the first period of her first competitive game since missing last season due to upper-body injuries.

Howard, with 132 career points (54 goals, 78 assists in 107 games played), needs only three more to become the new all-time points leader for Robert Morris. After leading the Colonials with 50 points (20 G, 30 A) in 2016-17 to earn both the team's first-ever conference scoring title and CHA Player of the Year award, the first-line fixture was selected by the National Women's Hockey League champion Buffalo Beauts with the tenth overall pick of the NWHL Draft Aug. 17.

Welcome Back

Robert Morris returns 16 players from last year's CHA Tournament championship squad, including 2016-17 All-CHA First Team selections Brittany Howard and Kirsten Welsh, plus Second Team honoree Jaycee Gebhard. Howard eclipsed the 40-point mark for the third season in a row, finished tenth in the national scoring race with her 50 points (20 goals, 30 assists) and was the Division I co-leader in power play points (19).
 
Sharing the lead in D-I power play points was Gebhard, also the NCAA leader in power play goals (9) last season. She was named CHA Rookie of the Year, and eventually, the national rookie of the year after finishing her first collegiate year with 22 goals and 46 points, with half those points coming in regular-season CHA play.



Top Notch

The Colonials return their top seven point producers, including Howard, Gebhard, Amber Rennie, Welsh, Maggie LaGue, Katherine Murphy and Amanda Pantaleo. Gebhard, the Robert Morris and CHA leader in goals (22), also paced RMU with a .611 faceoff win percentage and, like Howard, ended the year with a team-best plus-38 rating. The formidable blue line tandem of LaGue and Murphy co-led the Colonials with 60 blocked shots apiece, and Pantaleo was tops with a 19.6 shooting percentage.
 
An Ontario native and 2015-16 All-USCHO Rookie selection, Welsh finished the 2016-17 regular season third among all defensemen nationally in goals (9) and fifth in points per game among defensemen (0.72). She registered a point in 19 games during the regular campaign, including eight of the last ten. When the Colonials' historic postseason finally ended, Welsh was tied for ninth in Division I for points by a blueliner (23).



Oh Captain, My Captain

Senior forward Amanda Pantaleo will captain the 2017-18 Colonials, assisted by Brittany Howard and Katherine Murphy.

Fresh Faces

A talented cast of seven freshmen rounds out the 2017-18 roster: Janey Sandoval, Lexi Templeman, Emilie Harley, Anjelica Diffendal, Emily Curlett, Morgan Schauer and Molly Singewald.

Looking Back

RMU entered the NCAA Tournament after winning seven of its previous eight, including five games in a row. Senior goaltender Jessica Dodds had shutout victories in three of her last five starts, yielding just two goals in that span, to increase her final career total to a program-record 14 shutouts. Dodds was named Most Outstanding Player of the CHA Tournament and joined Jessica Gazzola and Brittany Howard on the All-Tournament Team.

Gazzola led Robert Morris with four game-winning goals, netting both GW's for the Colonials in their CHA Tournament victories.

Robert Morris raked in multiple awards at last season's annual CHA Championship Banquet:

• Head coach Paul Colontino: CHA Coach of the Year
• Brittany Howard: CHA Player of the Year (first in program history), CHA Scoring Trophy (first in program history), All-CHA First Team
• Jaycee Gebhard: CHA Rookie of the Year, All-CHA Second Team, All-CHA Rookie Team
• Jessica Dodds: All-CHA First Team
• Kirsten Welsh: All-CHA First Team

Gebhard cracked the top ten list of individual all-time leaders in power play goals at Robert Morris. She co-led the nation with nine power play goals. Gebhard set a new RMU record for single-season points by a rookie (46). She tied with Rebecca Vint for most goals scored by a rookie in her debut campaign (22).

Colontino earned his 100th career win with a 5-3 victory over the Brown Bears Dec. 31, 2016.

Howard recorded her 100th career point on a power-play goal in RMU's 4-3 win over RIT Nov. 11, 2016.

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