Wayne State earned its second series sweep of the season by blanking the Minnesota State Mavericks 1-0.
Goaltender Delayne Brian disallowed the Mavericks between the pipes for 120 minutes this past weekend. She stopped a total of 36 shots and earned her eighth career shutout. Alli Altmann at the other end stopped 22. Both players were honored as stars of the game respectively.
“Shutouts are obviously a big thing but the most important thing is coming out with two wins,” Brian said.
In the first period, Minnesota State came out with high speed and maintained puck possession. However, the Warriors solid defense and penalty kill kept them from trailing. Wayne State went 0-for-4 on the penalty and Minnesota State went 0-for-3.
“We struggled this weekend,” Wayne State coach Jim Fetter said of his special teams. “I thought they [Mavericks] did a really good job breaking us up entering their zone. It’s probably something we’re going to work on this week just in case we run into something like this again.”
The Warriors were outshot 31-13 by the end of the second. Just 00:13 into the final period, Wayne State forward Julie Ingratta scored her eighth goal of the season and ended the scoring drought. Ingratta’s high shot, assisted by Jill Szandzik and Micheline Frappier, went just past the left shoulder of Altmann and sealed the game-winner.
The Mavericks gained back some momentum near the end of regulation with an attempt to send the game into overtime. They pulled their goalie with a minute left for the extra attacker, but were unable to capitalize. The Mavericks suffered their fourth consecutive loss as a result.
“Our power play was all right; we just needed to work the puck more,” a disappointed Kathleen Rogan said. Rogan had four shots on goal for Minnesota State.
The Warriors will head out to New York to play the Syracuse Orange on Dec. 3. They will not host a game until Jan. 14, 2011 against Niagara University.
“We definitely need more shots,” Brian said. “We’re going to do a lot of battle drills and we expect Syracuse to come out hard next weekend.”
