From today's Maine Campus....
 
 
 
Black Bears win first league game
 
by Dave Bailey
Maine Campus Staff
 
To some, it might be just another puck. But to Maine women's hockey
coach Rick Filighera, it
was the perfect birthday gift.
  Filighera celebrated his 31st birthday in style Saturday as Maine
downed St. Lawrence 3-2 at
Alfond Arena for its first conference win of the season.
  "I can be real happy about this one," said Filighera, holding the
puck the way a child grasps a
piece of candy. "We are loving life right now."
  Raffi Wolf tallied two goals for Maine, while Kira Misikowetz had
one, which proved to be the
difference-maker.
  Penalty killing was the key to victory for the Black Bears, as Maine
shot down five St.
Lawrence power plays, including two when the Saints had two-skater
advantages.
  Maine (5-5-0. 1-5-0 ECAC) also had to cope with some line shuffles.
With Alison Lorenz out
with a twisted ankle and Colleen Baude under the weather, Amy Van Vuren
was inserted into
the left wing position alongside scoring powerhouses Wolf and
Misikowetz.
  And it didn't take long for the move to pay big dividends.
  Just 37 seconds into the game, Van Vuren, who was to the right of
Saints goaltender Emily
Stein (19 saves), flipped the puck to a waiting Wolf in front of the
net. Wolf then banged it high
to Stein's left to put the Bears on the board.
  "It was the most important goal, [being] right at the beginning,"
said Wolf, who now has 13
goals on the season to lead Maine. "We have to play with everyone. The
whole team has to get
along."
  Five minutes later, Maine was put to the test when two quick
penalties put the Bears at a
two-skater disadvantage.
  But with the crowd of 187 shouting "Dee-fense!" and Wolf clearing the
puck out of the Maine
zone, the Bears were able to kill the penalty.
  "When [Wolf] gets a hang of the puck, it's gone," Filighera said.
"That's why she's out there."
  With her defensive credentials well-established, Wolf exhibited her
offensive skills again in the
second, rebounding her own shot and stinging the puck to Stein's right
for a power-play goal.
  But St. Lawrence wasn't about to lie down just yet. Midway through
the second, Nicole Kirnan
and Caroline Trudeau scored two goals for the Saints in the span of
2:35 to knot the score.
  After surving another two-woman disadvantage, Maine took the lead for
good, when
Misikowetz took a loose puck and stuck it in the net for an unassisted
goal at 3:38.
  "It wasn't a spectacular goal," Misikowetz said. "It was just a
"cross the net, jam it in' goal.
Amy Van Vuren was behind the net and she worked hard to get it out
there, and I just smashed
it in."
  Kathleen Hedges made 41 saves in the net for Maine, upping her record
to 3-3-0. Among the
sweet stops was a sweeping glove save off Meghan Maguire's dead-on shot
with 10:26 left in
the second, not to mention a plethora of saves in the third when Maine
was unable to get the
puck out of its zone (The Bears had only one shot in the second half of
the third).
  St. Lawrence outshot Maine 43-22 overall.
  "We just kept on saying we thought we were better than them,"
Misikowetz said. "We thought
if we kept giving it to them that we would come out on top. No matter
what they did, we just
kept on saying, "C'mon guys, let's go.'"
  Friday - Polar Opposite
  Saturday's triumph helped wash out the bad taste of Friday's debacle,
as a sluggish Maine team
was corralled 3-0 by an equally sluggish St. Lawrence squad at the
Alfond the third time this
season the Black Bears have been shut out.
  Filighera was in a less-than-jovial mood following a game in which
the Bears failed to take
advantage of the subpar Saints.
  "We played with no enthusiasm," Filighera said. "We weren't going to
the net. "
  Filighera also said that such inconsistencies can be expected from a
young team like Maine.
  Maine defenseman Jessica Stachiw noted Maine's sluggishness on the
ice.
  "Our energy was kind of low," Stachiw said. "We were trying to pick
it up, but I think we know
what we have to do."
  St. Lawrence coach Ron Waske suggested that Maine's lack of depth was
a factor in the
Saints' victory.
  "Unfortunately, the depth isn't going to be there," he said.
"[Maine's] first line is as competitive
as many of the first lines in the [ECAC], but the depth after that is a
little weak."
  St. Lawrence got on the board 3:14 into the game when Suzanne Fiacco
one-timed a Nicole
Kirnan pass past Hedges.
  The score was 1-0 until the third, when St. Lawrence scored two more
to blow the game open.
  "The third period, we just sleptwalked through it," Filighera said.
  Stacy Boudrais gave the Saints the two-goal lead, sticking the puck
to Hedges' left.
  Christa Talbot capped the scoring for St. Lawrence with a powerful
slap-shot goal from just in
front of the blue line.
  Hedges made 21 saves for Maine, while Caryn Ungewitter made 18 for
St. Lawrence to run
her record to 3-5-0.