ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Whether or not history is destined to repeat for the College Hockey America (CHA) champions, the No. 10
Robert Morris women's hockey team is eager to prove that it does, indeed, rhyme, on occasion.
The Colonials (14-6-3, 8-2-2) rallied for a 4-3 overtime win over RIT (4-19-3, 1-11-0) at the Gene Polisseni Center Saturday afternoon, as
Jaycee Gebhard paid the price for a power play goal with 1:52 left in regulation, and
Maggie LaGue, in a game where her team didn't get the bounces it got yesterday, made the Tigers pay for squandering the late lead by getting one 2:03 into the extra session.
"Sometimes it just takes one bounce to go in," LaGue said of her third career game-winner--two of which have come in that building--and first since her freshman year.
This series, the first won by RMU since its earlier sweep of RIT at home Nov. 10-11, echoed a road trip to Brown Oct. 20-21 that saw Robert Morris post its largest margin of victory in the
Paul Colontino era, then rally from a two-goal deficit the next day to win on a last-second strike by unlikely heroine
Natalie Fraser.
Today, the visitors fell behind 2-0 in the first period and 3-1 early in the second, not quite 24 hours removed from equaling that victory margin record. Nevertheless, they persisted into OT, where the Colonials, by virtue of another infrequent goal-scorer, are now unbeaten in their past 11 trips (4-0-7) dating back to the middle of last season.
"It's one of those things we talked about in the locker room. We didn't want it to be another Brown," said LaGue, noting the resemblance. "They were going to come out hard. We gave them some opportunities, and they capitalized, but we knew we had it in us to bounce back."
With the game in the balance, the junior defender took a puck deep in her own end and glided with it down the right wing into RIT territory. She floated it toward the net from the half-wall, past a prone Tiger backchecker, and it skipped in front of Terra Lanteigne and past her glove hand to complete the comeback.
"'Crash' (
Sarah Lecavalier) was trying to weave in front. I was mainly just trying to get the puck on net when saw her going to the net...and maybe she could knock it in, and it just happened to take a lucky bounce," LaGue explained.
It was, arguably, the only glaring mistake made by Lanteigne, who fueled her team's upset bid with 38 saves and made a number of acrobatic stops to help keep the highest-scoring team in CHA relatively quiet until the game's waning moments.
After Colontino called timeout to set up the pivotal power play,
Brittany Howard fired a shot into heavy traffic at the top of the Tigers' goal crease. Gebhard and
Amber Rennie both went for the loose puck, and Gebhard, through the sea of bodies, was able to poke it between Lanteigne's legs to force the sudden-death period.
"I give their goalie credit. She made some really big stops," said LaGue, who picked up her program-best 53rd career assist on the play. "We tried to stay positive. We knew we had it in us, and our coaches said throughout to stick with the process. We knew one of those was going to go in pretty soon. We never gave up on each other or ourselves."
Gebhard, with 3:18 to go in the first, got Robert Morris on the board when Howard's turnaround shot from the left side caromed right to her off Lanteigne, allowing her to put it in the partially exposed net from close range. The sophomore forward has suddenly caught fire with four goals, seven points and a plus-3 rating over her last three outings.
Howard now shares her CHA assist lead with 19 on the campaign. The 2017 Dapper Dan Sportswoman of the Year and reigning conference scoring champion continues to lead CHA with 37 points. With 97 career helpers and 169 lifetime points, RMU's all-time points queen ranks second among all active collegians in both categories.
Lanteigne's counterpart,
Elijah Milne-Price, continued her fabulous senior season by overcoming the untoward start and making a career-high 32 saves for her conference-leading 13th win. She got good two-way support from more than just LaGue, for that matter.
Rookie sensation
Emily Curlett, who also blocked three shots, snuck one through traffic just over six minutes into the second to get the Colonials back within one after
Aneta Ledlova won a puck battle along the near boards and Gebhard fed her near the blue line.
Curlett has moved into a tie with fellow RMU newcomer
Lexi Templeman for the CHA rookie scoring lead with an identical seven goals and 16 points. In addition, she moved up to fourth nationally among defenders in blocks, with 61.
The Colonials defense has combined for 74 points (21 G, 53 A) this season, now the second-most in the NCAA.
"A lot of it has to do with chemistry," said LaGue. "We know our roles, but we also trust each other and trust ourselves to jump in and generate offense as well."
Robert Morris returns home from its dramatic win for its annual Skate For The Cure weekend, with conference rival Penn State providing the competition at the RMU Island Sports Center next Friday at 7:05 p.m. and next Saturday at 3:05 p.m.
With RMU still just one point off the pace in CHA, another long unbeaten streak, like the one that started with the strikingly similar triumph at Brown, would serve the Colonials well.
"Yeah, we'd like this to be another streak." LaGue laughed. "It's something we're going to aim for, for sure."
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