PITTSBURGH -- The
Robert Morris women's hockey team fell to No. 10 Colgate, 4-3, at the RMU Island Sports Center Friday night, but not without late fireworks sparked by its leading scorer, who reached a personal milestone.
Down 4-0 with 10:28 left in the third period, the Colonials (6-6-1, 4-1-1) were awarded a five-minute power play, as Malia Schneider took a game misconduct for checking from behind. Junior assistant captain
Jaycee Gebhard went bar down with a wrist shot from the left circle for her team-leading ninth goal of the season and 100th career point with 9:05 to play.
Senior defenders and tri-captains
Maggie LaGue and
Kirsten Welsh set up the 5-on-4 tally. Gebhard, the October Player of the Month in College Hockey America, became the fifth RMU player to hit the career century mark, joining
Brittany Howard '18 (181); Rebecca Vint '15 (134); Thea Imbrogno '14 (122) and Brianna Delaney '12 (121).
Now with 44 goals as a collegian, Gebhard also took sole possession of sixth place on the program's all-time chart from original Colonial Kristen Miles '09. Her ongoing streak of six games with a goal is the longest of her career.
The 5'3" Plenty, Saskatchewan native and Notre Dame Hounds prodigy went on to assist two more power play tallies by RMU, giving her the NCAA lead in power play helpers (seven) and points (ten). Gebhard, with 18 points overall, sits in a fourth-place tie in the Division I scoring race entering Saturday.
As time ticked away on the extended PP, the Robert Morris offense continued to pound away. Through heavy traffic in front of the Raiders net,
Amber Rennie jammed a loose puck past Julia Vandyk for her fourth of the year, making it a two-goal game with 5:58 to go in regulation.
The Colonials pulled
Arielle DeSmet, who had relieved
Lauren Bailey to begin the period, with 2:49 on the clock, and a tripping call against Bailey Larson moments later afforded them a 6-on-4 opportunity. LaGue made good on it by beating Vandyk with a snap shot from high in the offensive zone with 1:49 remaining, her second special teams score in as many games.
"I think we knew we had nothing to lose at that point. We worked together and left it all on the ice," LaGue said of her team's furious comeback attempt. "We proved to ourselves we can come back and beat a team in a period like that. But we've got to start every game like that and not wait for us to be down to do that.
"I think we have the right tools to come out that way tomorrow, like we did in the third."
Sophomore forward
Lexi Templeman picked up her second straight assist on that goal, extending her point streak to five games. Her ten apples on the year now lead CHA and tie her for sixth place nationally.
DeSmet kept RMU in the hunt by stopping all five shots she faced in the final stanza. Seeing action for the first time since her first career win Oct. 13, she has denied 13 of her first 14 in a Colonials uniform.
Her defensive corps was only five players deep this particular Friday, forced to play without junior
Sarah Lecavalier and rookie
Gillian Thompson due to injuries.
"It makes us play a little bit smarter, in the sense that we don't want to play minute-long defensive shifts," LaGue added. "We want to get the puck out to the forwards, we want to play more offense. It is a little bit of a different mindset, but I think it makes us play smarter, not harder."
Bailey, the two-time CHA Goalie of the Week, saw her run of 101 minutes and 18 seconds of shutout hockey come to an end just past the midpoint of the first period.
Captain Jessie Eldridge, who ended it with a power play tally, would go on to score twice for the Raiders (7-4-0, 3-1-0).
Robert Morris looks for the series split at 3:05 p.m. ET at Colonials Arena Saturday. Fans can visit the ISC lobby for tickets.
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