The Bears came away with a victory against St. Anselm College Friday in a 1-0 shutout before tying the Hawks 3-3 Saturday.
Friday’s win marked the second shutout of the season for goalkeeper Calla Isaac ’20. The first two periods passed scoreless for both teams before forward Tina Paolillo ’22 returned her own rebound to score the first and only goal of the match. Veronica Alois ’20 and Mel Anderson ’22 assisted in the game-winning score.
Bruno (3-15-2) carried the Friday momentum into the first period on Saturday, winning the opening faceoff and taking four shots in the first two minutes of play. St. Anselm (13-9-3) disrupted Brown’s early rhythm with a hooking penalty at 3:31, resulting in the Hawks’ initial powerplay of the night. Goalkeeper Hayley Kliczko ’22 fought off a series of shots against heavy traffic, stalling St. Anselm’s offense through the remainder of the penalty clock.
“(Kliczko) has played well.” said Head Coach Carisa Zaban Wahlig. “It was her opportunity to step up and show us what she could do.”
An interference call against St. Anselm handed Bruno a powerplay of their own at 10:43. None of the Bears’ ensuing five shots slid past the goal line, but at 13:32, less than a minute after the powerplay expired, St. Anselm incurred another interference penalty, giving the Bears another chance to notch the opening goal. Forward Shay Maloney ’22 won the powerplay faceoff for the Bears, promptly torpedoing the puck into the Bears’ attack zone. Defender Maybelline Beiring ’20 managed to take possession under pressure and attempt a shot, but was narrowly denied by the Hawks’ goalkeeper. Maloney followed up on the save, smacking the puck back toward the net to score the game’s first in the final second of Brown’s powerplay.
Maloney maintained control going into the second period, winning the opening faceoff and taking a shot on goal in the first 30 seconds of the stanza. Maloney led the Bears in faceoff wins for both contests with 15 Friday and 23 Saturday.
St. Anselm quickly followed Maloney’s shot with a chance of its own. But Kliczko remained unshaken in the net, blocking the shot and regaining possession for Bruno. But at 7:40, St. Anselm corralled a drifting puck to score their first goal of the weekend.
“We were caught puck-watching in those certain situations,” Kliczko observed. “When we were moving the puck, we were able to initiate passes that got us out of the zone.”
In the final minutes of the period, the teams traded powerplays again. The Bears made the most out of their opportunity, with defender Jacquie Tam ’22 sniping the lead back for Brown at 2-1 with Beiring and Kaitijane Blumberg ’21 assisting at only nine seconds remaining in the period.
The tone of the third stanza was, once again, set by Maloney as she took the faceoff and moved into the offensive zone where defender Anderson attempted Brown’s first shot of the stretch. At the start of the third period, the Bears controlled possession and launched six consecutive shots toward the Hawks’ net. The barrage of shots culminated with the Bears’ third and final goal of the night three minutes into the period, executed by forward Lizzy Gross ’22 and assisted by Beiring and Megan Forrest ’21, bringing the total to 3-1. Beiring assisted on every Brown goal of the night.
After the Bears were given another powerplay opportunity with six minutes to go in the game, victory appeared to be in reach. An interference penalty on St. Anselm appeared to present an opportunity for Bruno to extend their lead, but the Hawks recovered a missed shot from the Bears, sprinted toward the opposite net and landed a shorthanded goal to tie the game at three all.
“We ultimately always want to go out on top, but to do so, you’ve got to be the team that wants it more, and that wasn’t us tonight,” said Wahlig. The period concluded with a tense two minutes of close exchanges in Brown’s defensive zone, including a pair of shots blocked by Tam and Anderson respectively. But the Bears ultimately skated out of the third period into overtime.
The five-minute tiebreaking round began with an aggressive St. Anselm winning three consecutive faceoffs. But once Brown took possession, they kept it, giving St. Anselm no further scoring opportunities, winning each remaining faceoff, and shooting nine times in under four minutes.
In the five-minute overtime period, neither team could find the winning edge, with the buzzer sounding on a 3-3 tie. The Bears took nearly double the shots as the Hawks did throughout the contest, ultimately outshooting them 39-22.
“A big thing we had wanted to focus on going into the weekend was generating offense,” said Maloney. “We worked hard in the offensive zone to gain control and beared down on our sides to bring about opportunities for ourselves.”
The women’s hockey team will face Yale at home Tuesday at 6 p.m.
“Yale is a very different team than St. Anselm,” Wahlig said. “We try to prepare for each team accordingly … the hope is that we bounce back and are ready to go on Tuesday.”
