Cheyenne Degeer tallied back-to-back goals in the third, but the Maine Black Bears responded with two goals of their own to defeat the St. Lawrence University women's hockey team 4-3 on Thursday night at Alfond Arena in Orono, Maine.
Degeer recorded her second career multi-goal game with two goals, while
Kendall Doiron recorded her first career goal in Scarlet and Brown.
The Black Bears capitalized first, scoring their first goal on the power play. With a successful screen in front of Saints' goaltender
Kassidy Lawrence, Kendall Sundby ripped a shot from the left circle for the 1-0 lead.
Maine held onto their one-goal lead and led 11-6 shots on goal after the first 20 minutes.
Doiron scored her first collegiate goal early in the second period to knot things up 1-1.
Doiron scooped up the puck near the Saints blue line, carried through the neutral zone and after a quick hand off, she went forehand, backhand and beat Kiia Lahtinen for the tie game.
Mikayla Boarder put the Black Bears in the lead for the second time, as she went blocker side for the 2-1 edge with 5:10 to play in the second.
Degeer skated in from the left side and slipped the puck through the legs of Lahtinen to score her first of the game and tie things up again 2-2.
After 40 minutes, the game stayed knotted up 2-2 and Maine led 19-11 in shots on goal.
Just 3:24 into the third, Degeer scored her second of the game to give SLU a 3-2 edge. Degeer intercepted a pass in the Black Bears' zone, passed off to Mulvihill. Mulvihill's initial shot was blocked, but she collected her own rebound and went cross ice for Degeer's goal.
Maine scored two unanswered goals to tie the game for a third time and take the 4-3 final.
"Tough night from the get-go," said head coach
Chris Wells. "I certainly didn't have us ready to play the way we needed to play to be in the game. We had some good chances and scored, but overall Maine brought it all game and made it difficult for us to sustain anything to get them off their pace."
"Congratulations are in order for Alex getting his first win as the head coach. He's done a wonderful job getting the team ready this early in the season."
Lawrence recorded 39 saves for the Saints, while Lahtinen stopped 22 for Maine.
The Black Bears outshot the Saints 73-42 and led 43-25 in shots on goal. SLU blocked 19 shots to Maines' 14.
Maine claims its first win of the season at 1-2-0, while the Saints fell to 0-3-0.
The Saints and the Black Bears meet for game two of the weekend series, tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m.
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