February 21, 2005

Women's Icers Drop Two

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Beth Baronick and Flora Vineberg had a busy weekend — an extremely busy weekend. The two women’s hockey goaltenders combined to make 87 saves this weekend at Mercyhurst.

“The goalies were great,” said senior captain Jamie Ramenofsky. “They did phenomenal. They showed what they can do.”

However, even with the duo’s impressive performances keeping the Red close in both games, Cornell’s offense just could not produce as the Lakers swept the weekend series.

In Saturday’s game, Baronick did everything she could to shut down the Lakers’ attack. However, not even her 47 save performance could keep the Red from suffering a 5-0 defeat. Teresa Marchese proved to be the key for the Mercyhurst offense, assisting on the Lakers’ first three goals before collecting one of her own. Her first assist came less than six minutes into the contest, as she set up Sarah Kurth’s first career goal.

“We came out sluggish in the first period,” Ramenofsky said. “They’re in a different league and they were definitely playing a different style.”

Mercyhurst’s next two strikes came on the power play, as Stefanie Bourbeau and Samantha Shirley extended Mercyhurst’s lead to 3-0 heading into the final period of play.

“The power play killed us,” Ramenofsky said. “It was a physical, gritty game in general.”

During the first two periods, Baronick did an excellent of job of keeping the Red within striking distance, turning aside 18 Lakers’ shots in the second frame alone. However, the Red were never able to close the gap on Mercyhurst.

Early in the third period, the Lakers put the game out of reach for Cornell as Shirley picked up her second goal of the game just 1:08 into the frame. Marchese netted her goal a little over six minutes later to close out the game’s scoring.

Desirae Clark turned away 15 Cornell shots to earn the shutout for Mercyhurst.

Yesterday, Vineberg compiled almost identical statistics to Baronick’s the day before, making 40 saves on Mercyhurst’s 44 shots. Nevertheless, the team suffered the same fate as the Red fell to the Lakers, 4-0.

“The goalies kept us in the games,” said freshman Brianne Schmidt. “They both played really well and made several key saves.”

Like the day before, Mercyhurst dominated play through the first two periods, outshooting Cornell by a 29-8 margin in those frames. With Cornell’s offense unable to get on track, the Lakers pulled away.

The game’s scoring opened just 1:22 into the contest, as Mercyhurst jumped out to the early lead on Lindsay Dellow’s second goal of the year. Later in the period, Shirley used a Lakers power play to net her third goal of the weekend and extend the lead to 2-0.

Marchese — with her fifth point of the weekend and team-leading 14th goal of the season — and Dellow would each add one more score apiece to put Mercyhurst ahead by four midway through the third period.

Facing this deficit, though, the Red refused to quit. With less than two minutes left in the game, the Cornell offense finally woke up as Jen Munhofen notched her third goal of the year to break up Mercyhurst’s attempt for a second consecutive shutout. Junior Vicki Hodgkinson and Ramenofsky — playing in her last career road game — contributed assists on the play. Cornell returns home this weekend to wrap-up its ECACHL schedule with games against Clarkson and St. Lawrence. Seniors Pearle Nerenberg, Lara Kelly, Maryann Nowak and Ramenofsky will be honored after Saturday night’s game.

“We want to leave the season with no regrets,” Schmidt said. “We want to play for the seniors and also build a foundation for next year.”

Archived article by Scott Reich
Sun Staff Writer