HAMILTON, N.Y. -- Once again, the No. 9 Robert Morris women's hockey team proved it can play with the nation's elite, and that it is willing to go more than 60 minutes to prove that point.

The point it earned was a quality one, as the Colonials (11-3-3, 5-1-2), owners of the highest-scoring defensive corps in College Hockey America (CHA), battled to a 3-3 tie with No. 4 Colgate (15-3-1, 6-2-0) in non-conference action at Class of 1965 Arena Saturday afternoon.

Senior defender Natalie Fraser, with her team trailing, blasted a shot through traffic from the right point with 5:46 remaining to force the extra frame. RMU, having completed the 2017 portion of its 2017-18 regular campaign, is now unbeaten in its past ten sudden-death games (3-0-7) dating back to the middle of last season.

"I saw them poke the puck forward and received it on my backhand. In my wind-up, I made a little change to the angle of the shot, and shot as hard as I could," said Fraser of her second, similarly dramatic goal of the year. "The puck had eyes."

It was the first for the Ottawa native since her buzzer-beating rebound goal sunk host Brown Oct. 21. Robert Morris has amassed 52 points (12 G, 40 A) from its blue-liners through the first half of this season.

Offensively, the guests landed enough punches to share points with the stubborn Raiders, who had come in with a team goals-against average of 1.67, the fourth-best in Division I.

"We were pretty satisfied with the entire game. We came out strong in every period," Fraser said. "We knew it was our only shot to play Colgate this year, and we knew we had to give it our all."

Junior Maggie LaGue, in her first game back from injury, also contributed at the other end. Her first-period assist, the 50th of her career as a D-man, put her atop the all-time RMU leaderboard in that category for the time being.

Both schools traded power play chances throughout the first period, and with the Colonials on the 5-on-4 advantage, LaGue fired a puck into a crowd that Amber Rennie tried to put home on the follow-up. She was denied, but the rebound went to CHA Rookie of the Month Lexi Templeman right in front, who easily beat Julia Vandyk on her backhand for her team-best fourth PPG and sixth goal overall.

"We're always talking about getting pucks on net," Fraser said of the Robert Morris defense as a whole. "We work on that a lot and shoot as hard as we can in practice, and I think that carries over to the game."

Head coach Paul Colontino, whose squad also extended its unbeaten streak against Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) foes to eight games (5-0-3), shuffled his lines prior to the contest. Among other lineup changes, Templeman saw time on the top unit, and Jaycee Gebhard centered the second.

The moves paid dividends for RMU, which racked up 40 shots on goal, and they seemed to spark Gebhard in particular. She saw her own first-period goal washed out when officials deemed Vandyk had frozen a puck that was jammed over the goal line, but Gebhard got redemption on a second-period penalty kill.

She took advantage of a Colgate miscue at her own blue line and, with a burst of speed, beat Vandyk clean to the glove side on a contested breakaway for a nation-best sixth shorthanded goal by the Colonials, and a 2-0 lead at the game's midpoint. Gebhard, with 65 career points, is now tied with Cobina Delaney for the ninth-most in program history.

Although the Raiders quickly answered on the same power play, Robert Morris finished a respectable 5-for-6 on the PK, thanks in part to a couple crucial stops by Elijah Milne-Price. While Vandyk did enough damage control in regulation, Milne-Price held down the fort in OT, making a season-high 29 saves that included six in the extra session.

She wrapped up the first half of her senior year with a .767 win percentage that leads CHA. She has also posted a 1.71 GAA and .936 save percentage over her past four starts, helping Robert Morris go into the holiday break with an edge over Mercyhurst in the conference standings.

Syracuse, swept by the host Lakers Saturday, comes to the RMU Island Sports Center to help Robert Morris resume its season. The first pucks of the 2018 calendar year will drop at 7:05 and 3:05 p.m. Jan. 5-6, respectively.

"The first half has gone great, and everyone on the team is happy with the way we've played," Fraser said. "We're looking forward to continuing that after the break, and we're striving for getting better."

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