Box Score NORTHFIELD, Vt. – The Norwich University women's ice hockey team scored five unanswered goals to break an early 1-1 tie en route to a 6-1 win over UMass Boston in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) East Tournament semifinals at Kreitzberg Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Senior forward Kaycie Anderson (Maple Plain, Minn.) scored a pair of goals, while Maki Shuchuk (Madison, Wis.) and Vanessa Champagne (Saint-Nazaire, Quebec) added a goal and an assist to lead the Cadets to the victory.
Norwich (20-4-3, 15-0-2 ECAC East) will look to win its fourth straight ECAC East Tournament title and sixth in the last seven seasons when it hosts Castleton on Sunday at 3 p.m. at Kreitzberg Arena.
Anderson opened the scoring at the 4:41 mark of the first period with an unassisted tally after she stripped the puck away from a UMass Boston defender and then beat Beacons' starting goalie Moe Bradley with a wrist shot to make it 1-0 Norwich.
UMass Boston (10-13-4, 6-9-2 ECAC East) tied the game briefly at the 10:22 mark of the first period with Kayla Kiernan scoring on a rebound off an initial shot from Jess Salisbury from the point. Jenny Currie also notched a secondary assist for the Beacons.
The game stayed knotted until just over a minute to go in the first period when Sarah Schwenzfeier (Hingham, Mass.) picked off a UMass Boston pass at the blue line and then beat Bradley with a great wrist shot over the glove to give the Cadets a 2-1 lead that they would never look back from.
Anderson added a backbreaker just 30 seconds later when she beat Bradley with a perfect wrist shot over the shoulder and tucked just underneath the cross bar to make it 3-1 Norwich and completely deflate UMass Boston's momentum. Shuchuk and Taylor Cross (Saugus, Mass.) picked up assists on the goal.
Norwich kept the momentum rolling in the second period, adding three more tallies to take a 6-1 lead after 40 minutes. Freshman Muranda Toews (Grand Prairie, Alberta) extended the lead to 4-1 at the 7:28 mark of the middle frame, beating Bradley along the ice off assists from Adelle Murphy (Roseau, Minn.) and Champagne.
Champagne made it 5-1 just over two minutes later with her fourth goal of the season coming on the power play. Sophomore goalie Celeste Robert (Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec) started the play with a long clearing pass out of the zone from her own goal line. Murphy skated in on the puck and corralled it along the boards and then kept skating below the goal line. Murphy fired a centering pass to Champagne waiting at the right faceoff circle and she buried it past Bradley.
Shuchuk capped the scoring with her 12th of the season and her fourth of the playoffs by tipping a shot from the point by Cross to make it 6-1 Norwich. Erin Joyce (Manchester, N.H.) also picked up a secondary assist on the goal.
Robert made six saves for the Cadets in 40 minutes of action to improve to 10-2-1 on the season. Laurie King (Waddington, N.Y.) and Loren Carrier (Chandler, Ariz.) each played a portion of the third period.
Bradley stopped 22 shots for UMass Boston to finish the season at 4-7-3. Norwich outshot UMass Boston 28-12 and went 2-for-6 on the power play.
Norwich beat UMass Boston for the second straight season in the ECAC East Semifinals. Last year, the Cadets needed overtime to down the Beacons 2-1. NU will now face Castleton in a rematch of last year's ECAC East Championship, which the Cadets won 4-0. The winner of the game receives an automatic bid into the eight-team NCAA Tournament.
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