NEVILLE TWP., Pa — Gabrielle David scored her third goal of the contest at 4:43 of the overtime period, giving the No. 4 Golden Knights a 6-5 victory over the tenth-ranked Colonials at the Island Sports Center on Saturday. Heartbreak befell No. 10 Robert Morris with 53 seconds remaining as Elizabeth Giguere, with Marie-Pier Coulombe on the bench and the extra-attacker on the ice, broke through a strong neutral-zone shutdown by Robert Morris and fired a shot past Arielle DeSmet to tie things up.
The Golden Knights came out flying with David and first-year Lauren Bernard scoring before the ten-minute mark of the first and shutting down the Colonials offense. Robert Morris looked frazzled early in the game, but an eventual goal from Maggy Burbidge gave the squad life again, finding a loose puck and fired it past starter Amanda Zeglen. Michaela Boyle continued her torrid scoring streak with her fourth of the season on the power-play late.
Reigning College Hockey America player of the week Emily Curlett skated into the offensive zone and beat Zeglen on an innocent shot just over three minutes into the second to give Robert Morris their first lead of the contest. Zeglen immediately was replaced by Coulombe. The Colonials lead was safe until Curlett and Wasyn Rice took back-to-back minors that Clarkson took advantage of. David collected her second of the contest followed by Michaela Pejzlova to give the Golden Knights a one-goal advantage.
Curlett cashed in with one second remaining on an early five-on-three opportunity, deadlocking the teams at four apiece. Back-to-back penalties to Rice and Lexi Templeman set the stage for Clarkson to have an apparent advantage, but it was not meant to be. Curlett found Jaycee Gebhard streaking out of the zone and the senior found the top of the back of the net on a break away, giving Robert Morris their final lead of the contest.
Curlett and Gebhard each tallied three points in the contest, while Giguere and Pejzlova had a goal and four assists each.
FIRST GOALS
Clarkson first-year defender Bernard scored her first collegiate goal at the Island Sports Center on Saturday. The native of Madison, Ohio has a goal and three assists in the first six contests of the year.
“It was amazing, it was an experience I’ll never forget,” Bernard said. “Especially doing it at Robert Morris, which I grew up playing at a bunch of times with the Pens Elite program. It was awesome to get my first goal here.”
David’s hat-trick accounted for the first three goals of her career, too.
Not to be outdone, the opening goal for the Colonials came off of the stick of Maggy Burbidge, which was also the first in the forward’s career.
RANK ‘EM
After a review of the sweep at the hands of No. 2 Minnesota, Robert Morris received enough votes to enter the 2019 top-10 poll at No. 10 this week.
They controlled play and dominated at times against No. 4 Clarkson this weekend. Normally a tie and an overtime loss wouldn’t merit a rise in the ranking, but some interesting things happened with No. 8 Minnesota-Duluth and and No. 9 Ohio State. Minnesota-Duluth was swept by unranked Bemidji State and Ohio State secured two ties with Minnesota State- losing the first game in overtime.
There is a good chance the Colonials can take the ice on Friday with either a No. 8 or No. 9 ranking without a single victory over their past four games.
UP NEXT
Robert Morris heads to Ithaca, N.Y. to face No. 5 Cornell at Lynah Rink Oct 25 & 26. Puck drop is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. on Friday and 3:00 p.m. on Saturday.
