CANTON, N.Y. — The box score for the St. Lawrence-Rensselaer women’s hockey contest Friday night looked fairly similar to the box score of any game involving the Saints this year. The Saints top line recorded two goals — one apiece from Kennedy Marchment and Brooke Webster in the Saints 4-1 win over RPI.
However, the game-winning goal belonged to Justine Reyes, who has quietly been an effective player for the Saints — along with linemates Kayla Vespa and Kayla Neilsen — while the top line of Marchment, Webster and Hannah Miller gets all the attention.
“Reyes goes quietly about her business just about anywhere she is,” said St. Lawrence head coach Chris Wells, who emphasized the importance of the second line, nicknamed the blue line for their practice jersey color. “I think having that depth in the lines, with that line, and with Grant and Edney and McLaughlin, the depth has been able to limit a lot of chances. The blue line has had a lot of chances and they were just missing. They had a great week of practice and they were due to get one.”
The one they did get came off the stick of Reyes, her fourth goal of the year. Vespa fed Reyes with a pass below the goal line, and Reyes spun around the net into the slot and fired the puck past Lovisa Selander to put the Saints up 2-0.
“The top line has had a lot of chemistry, and when they are putting pucks in the net, it takes some pressure off us and lets us do our thing,” said Reyes. “On the goal tonight, Vespa cycled it out to me, and I stepped out and tried to fire it on net, and got lucky.”
Reyes goal came at the 5:35 mark of the second period, but the Saints already had a lead thanks to Amanda McClure’s first goal of the season. She took a pass through the slot from Kennedy Marchment and fired it past Selander just 2:35 into the second.
Whitney Renn put RPI on the board at the 15:01 mark of the second, beating Grace Harrison from the right faceoff dot. Harrison got a piece of the wristshot, but couldn’t keep out of the net.
Brooke Webster tallied just 38 seconds into the third period to increase the Saints lead to 3-1, and Marchment iced the win with her seventh of the season with 4:56 remaining in the third.
Engineers coach David Burke was positive after the loss, despite his team generating only 11 shots on net.
“We had a lot of attempts that game, we just missed the net too many times,” said Burke. “They were able to capitalize on their chances, and they had a couple of their goals, and Reyes popped one in as well, but they’ve been carrying the team so far.”
“I thought we battled back there (after the third goal), but we’ve got some injuries right now that aren’t helping,” Burke continued.
“We have to keep doing what we’re doing,” said Reyes as the Saints look to continue their hot start, which has them 10-0-1 overall and 5-0-0 in the ECAC. “We’ll keep working on keeping the puck out of the net, keep blocking shots which we’ve been doing really well.”
The Saints are back in action hosting Union on Saturday at 3 p.m. while RPI travels to Clarkson to take on the Golden Knights at 3 p.m.