Women's Hockey | 9/21/2018 12:11:00 PM
PITTSBURGH -- The
Robert Morris women's hockey team went in a different direction when choosing its captain for the 2018-19 season. For the first time under head coach
Paul Colontino, it will have more than one.
Senior defenders
Kirsten Welsh and
Maggie LaGue and senior forward
Amber Rennie have been named tri-captains, and junior forward
Jaycee Gebhard will serve as assistant captain. Collectively, the three upperclassmen are the eighth, ninth and tenth different captains of the Colontino era at RMU.
"We feel like we have such strong leadership from so many people on our team, particularly in our senior class," said Colontino, who is entering his eighth season with the Colonials. "To be able to do something like this as a coach is, honestly, a huge luxury. We think having this setup will alleviate one single person from carrying a heavy load by having multiple people sharing the duties."
Welsh concluded her junior season as the program's all-time top scorer among defenders, with 28 goals, 50 assists and 78 points in 105 games with the Colonials. The 5'11" Blackstock, Ontario native and Whitby Jr. Wolves product rung up 12 goals in 2017-18, setting a new Robert Morris mark for single-season tallies by a defender, and her 30 points over 32 games in '17-'18 put her in a fifth-place tie among all NCAA blue-liners.
A Krampade AHCA (American Hockey Coaches Association) Division I All-American Scholar and College Hockey America (CHA) All-Academic honoree, she was chosen as the CHA Defender of the Year Feb. 28 in concurrence with her second straight All-CHA First Team nod. She was named CHA Player of the Week three times this past season and made Third Team All-USCHO (United States College Hockey Online) Mar. 23, two years removed from being selected to the All-USCHO Rookie squad.
She comes into the '18-'19 season seventh in program history in points and tied for tenth in goals.
LaGue, as a junior, won a season-long battle with former assistant captain
Katherine Murphy '18 to become the program's all-time leader in assists by a defender. The 5'8" Barre, Vermont native and North American Hockey Academy product became the first blue-liner in RMU history to record 50 career helpers in a 3-3 tie at eventual national finalist Colgate Dec. 9, 2017, and she enters her senior campaign with 61 apples.
She ended the '17-'18 season with a career-high 22 assists, ranking fourth overall in CHA, and 25 points up front, while on the back end, she ranked fifth in the conference with 64 blocked shots. LaGue finished eighth among defenders in Division I with 0.78 points per game, and her final plus/minus rating of +28 set a new Robert Morris single-season defensive record.
Going into the 2018-19 season, LaGue is tied with Rebecca Vint '14 for the fourth-most assists in program history, and her career plus-37 rating ranks fifth all-time. Like Welsh, she earned both AHCA D-I Scholar and CHA All-Academic Team plaudits for the 2017-18 academic/athletic year.
Rennie, also a 2017-18 CHA All-Academic honoree, has been another of the Colonials' most consistent players in her time with the squad. The 5'3" Saskatoon, Saskatchewan native, who enters '18-'19 tenth in points in Robert Morris history (35 goals, 38 assists), has played alongside Gebhard, in particular, for well over a decade, including their overlapping junior stints with the Notre Dame Hounds.
She registered a career-high 16 goals and 29 points for her junior season, a year highlighted by three-game winning markers, which equaled her personal best, and her first collegiate hat trick, a natural HT at Minnesota State Oct. 8, 2017. Fittingly, Rennie and Gebhard are tied at No. 7 on the RMU all-time goals chart.
While also sitting among the program's top-ten in career game-winners (seven) and power play tallies (eight), Rennie ranks fourth in Colonial lore in plus/minus rating (+40), and her plus-30 rating in 2017-18 was the second-highest for a single season in team history.
Gebhard has been a fixture on some of the nation's most productive lines in her first two seasons. The 5'3" Plenty, Saskatchewan native and Notre Dame Hounds product registered 38 points in 2017-18, including a career-high 25 assists, the second-most in a single season in RMU history, skating mostly with Rennie, her fellow Saskatchewanian, and two-time CHA Player of the YearÂ
Brittany Howard '18.
Her sophomore campaign ended strongly, with a five-game point streak and a point in 12 of 13 games Jan. 13-Mar. 3. Gebhard scored nine goals over her final ten regular-season outings, and the aforementioned forward trio combined for 54 of the team's 122 goals in '17-'18, a new Robert Morris single-season record.
In 2016-17, Gebhard became the first Colonial to be tabbed the Women's Hockey Commissioners' Association (WHCA) National Rookie of the Year, and she was also hailed CHA Rookie of the Year after establishing a pair of Robert Morris rookie records with 22 goals and 46 points.
Prior to committing to Robert Morris, Gebhard served as assistant captain for the Under-18 Canadian squad in 2014-15, and she gained further international experience this summer at Team Canada's National Women's Development Camp, reuniting with fellow invitees Welsh and Howard.
In 2017-18, all four players had integral roles in the success of a Robert Morris team that earned back-to-back College Hockey America (CHA) regular-season titles, back-to-back CHA Tournament Final berths and, for the first time in program history, back-to-back 20-win seasons. The Colonials were ranked in both major national polls for 28 straight weeks dating back to the Fall 2016 term at one point, the longest such run in team history.
Few other teams in the country could generate offense from defense, for that matter, like the Colonials did in '17-'18. With LaGue's puck-moving skills and Welsh's wicked slap shot providing firepower, RMU generated 102 total points (26 goals, 76 assists) from its defensive corps, making it, at the time its season ended, the highest-scoring unit in the NCAA.
Gebhard and Rennie, meanwhile, helped lead an offense that amassed 122 goals last season, a new Robert Morris single-year record.
"We all try to bring something to dinner and make sure that there's no free lunches with this setup," Colontino said. "Everybody contributes, and we feel, that way, we get stronger exponentially."
The Colonials (21-8-4, 14-3-3 in '17-'18) are gearing up for their annual preseason game Saturday night, in which the University of Ontario Institute of Technology will provide the competition.
The opening faceoff versus the Ridgebacks of UOIT is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. EDT at the RMU Island Sports Center, and admission is free.
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