Oct. 28: In the third of four meetings on tap between the St. Lawrence women's hockey team and No. 9 Clarkson this season, the Golden Knights scored three goals in the third period – two with the net empty – en route to a 5-0 shutout of the Saints at Cheel Arena on Tuesday night. It is the first time the Saints, now 3-3-1 and 0-1-0 in the ECAC, have been kept off the board this season.

Senior captain Shannon MacAulay led the Golden Knights with a hat trick, scoring a goal in the first period and two in the third, while Genevieve Bannon and Cayley Mercer added the others.

This was the first game in 10 days for the St. Lawrence, not having played since the Robert Morris series on Oct. 17 and 18, while Clarkson was coming off a weekend sweep of Syracuse just three days ago.

"I don't think the score was indicative of what kind of game it was," Head Coach Chris Wells said. "We had some good chances and they have some good chances. Clarkson, especially MacAulay, Bannon and Mercer executed well when they had their chances."

Despite having a fair amount of chances and battling back and forth with the Knights for much of the evening, Head Coach Chris Wells shouldered blame for a lack of preparedness for Tuesday's test.

"We had some good fight in us and that is always good to see, but I didn't have our team as ready to go as I should have and after a 10 day layoff that's my fault," he said. "At the end of the day, Clarkson does such a good job getting teams off their game; they did that tonight."

After going back and forth for much a the first period, Clarkson snapped a scoreless tie at the 16:32 mark when MacAulay roofed a shot over a sprawling Carmen MacDonald after a scrum for a loose puck along the left side of the net. MacDonald initially made a save on a MacAulay shot from in close, but the senior netminder couldn't regain her footing to thwart the second attempt.

With the team's playing four-on-four late in the second period, Mercer extended the lead to 2-0 after taking a two line pass from Bannon in transition. Mercer battled for the puck in the Saints zone with first-year Amanda McClure before moving in alone on MacDonald. The senior Pictou, Nova Scotia native  came out to the top of the crease to attempt to poke check the puck away, but Mercer was able to lift it over and in for the team's second goal.  

The Saints best opportunity of the night came with 46.7 seconds remaining in the second period, as they sprung Megan Armstrong who had just come out of the penalty box. The junior defenseman in alone on Clarkson's Shea Tiley, but was eventually hauled down by Savannah Harmon and slid into the goal before she was able to get a shot away. Although the Saints bench was calling for a penalty shot, Harmon was whistled for checking and sent to the box to serve the minor penalty.

Midway through the third, MacAulay pushed the lead to three goals when she buried a rebound on the backhand from the top of the crease. MacDonald made a huge stick save on a shot by Jennifer Shields, but MacAulay was waiting on the doorstep to cash in her second of the night.

With the Saints trailing 3-0, Coach Wells pulled MacDonald for the extra attacker with 6:31 to play in the third period, but the Scarlet and Brown struggled to generate any real offensive chances with the advantage and Clarkson tacked on a pair of empty net goals, first by MacAulay with 2:02 to play, and then by Bannon a minute later.

Offensively, sophomore forward Alex Moore led the Saints with six shots on the night. MacDonald finished with 25 saves for St. Lawrence, while Tiley made 19 stops for the Clarkson.

While the first two matchups this season were nonconference games, Tuesday's was the first ECAC Hockey contest for both teams.  The travel partners will travel to Yale and Brown this weekend to continue conference play.