Abby Hehl and Kristina Bahl scored and sophomore goaltender Kassidy Lawrence made 23 saves, as the seventh-ranked St. Lawrence University women's hockey team defeated ninth-ranked Quinnipiac 2-1 on Friday night at Appleton Arena.

A good catch by Abby Hehl gave the Saints the advantage in the first, as the puck took a weird bounce off the stick of Bobcats' goaltender Kaley Doyle's stick. Hehl took advantage and made it 1-0 St. Lawrence with her fifth of the season.

After the first 20 minutes, SLU led 7-5 in shots on goal.

The Saints started the second period on the power play and received their second opportunity of the game just over five minutes in, but unfortunately couldn't capitalize on the advantage, receiving a penalty of their own.

Kassidy Lawrence, who took the net for the Saints tonight, made multiple big stops in the second to keep the Bobcats off the board. After some back-and-forth action to end the second, the Saints held onto their one-goal lead heading into the third and led 15-13 in shots on goal.

The Saints clung to their one-goal lead for the majority of the third, but at 17:43, Sarah Marchand took a faceoff in the Saints' zone, and Kristina Bahl launched the puck down ice from the right corner to bank in the empty netter to give the Saints a 2-0 lead.

After the two-goal lead, the Bobcat's pulled Doyle on multiple occasions looking for the extra-attacker goal.

A minute and 16 seconds later, Laurence Frenette snuck one past Lawrence on the power play to bring the game back within one, but time would expire in favor of the Saints.


 

"What a way to get a huge win for our team this evening," said head coach Chris Wells. "Lots of emotions from puck drop until the final buzzer from all the players. We came out with great jump and really liked how we played early. Quinnipiac did a great job on the penalty kill and stifled our power play and they were able to get some good momentum from those kills."

"We had some great chances to make it 2-0 and Kass did a great job getting the big stops when needed and getting whistles on a number of her saves," Wells added. "We also had another great crowd today that was very supportive of our team."

Lawrence finished with 23 saves, while Doyle finished with 24.

St. Lawrence finished with a 26-24 edge in shots on goal. The lone power play goal of the game came from the Bobcats.

With the win, the Saints improved to 17-9-5 on the season and 11-5-3 in ECAC play, while Quinnipiac fell to 18-9-4 and 9-7-3.

St. Lawrence will host the No. 12 Princeton Tigers tomorrow at 3 p.m. for senior day.