ERIE — Robert Morris fell to Mercyhurst 7-0 at the Mercyhurst Ice Center on Friday night. Jade Maisonneuve scored twice for the Lakers in the contest.
The Colonials found the bounces early, but luck was on the Lakers side as a shot by Chantal Ste-Croix was initially deflected by Maggie Hatch, but careened off of the glass, onto the top of the cage and off the back of the net minder to give Mercyhurst the lead at 2:35 of the opening frame. A turnover at the blue line allowed Sofia Nuutinen to skate to the circles and fire a backhand pass off of the stick of Kylee Mahoney at 6:59, handing the Lakers a 2-0 lead.
Mercyhurst found the back of the net three times in the second, as former Robert Morris commit Maisonneuve’s breakaway goal at 12:49 , Megan McKay’s power-play goal at 14:01 and Marielle Parks short-handed goal at 16:40 gave the Lakers a 5-0 lead out of the second frame.
Lucy Phillips replaced Hatch to start the third, and Mercyhurst continued their assault on the cage, adding a power-play goal by Sofia Nuutinen and Maisonneuve’s second closed out the scoring.
Hatch started for the Colonials stopping 24-of-29 shots she faced and Phillips 2-of-12. Magdalena Luggin stopped all 20 shots she faced for her first career shutout.
STALLED MOMENTUM
While it just began to show in the results Robert Morris has been on the upswing in the past month, beginning to gel in the system that was instilled by coach Logan Bittle and getting their second conference victory last Saturday over RIT, today was a wake-up call for a team that needs to find momentum down the stretch for any chance to make noise in the playoffs.
“The compete we had in the last five games, the effort of playing for each other wasn’t there tonight,” Logan Bittle said post game. “I don’t know what it is, it’s up to them to figure out, it isn’t a systems thing necessarily, it was just the effort. We were doing so well for five straight games, we have to find it again. We have to learn how to come off a loss and be better. I think we will, but today wasn’t what we needed or what we wanted, and we need to learn from it.”
UP NEXT
Robert Morris and Mercyhurst close their season series with a contest at 1:00pm Saturday from the Mercyhurst Ice Center. The Colonials head home to finish the season with a six game home stand starting with Penn State next Friday at the RMU Island Sports Center. Face-off for the first of two against the Nittany Lions is 3:00pm.
