The Pipers of Hamline University won the third-place game at the NCAA Division III women\u2019s ice hockey national championship Saturday, defeating the defending champion, Plattsburgh State, 5-4 in overtime.<\/p>\n
The win, which was earned by a goal from senior Darby Dodds, ends the Pipers\u2019 season with a record of 22-5-3 and a third-place finish in the team\u2019s first NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just really proud of the girls and the season we had,\u201d Hamline head coach Natalie Darwitz said.<\/p>\n
The game began well for the Pipers, as they put 19 shots on goal in the first period. A goal by sophomore Sadie Baker at 5:03 and another by junior Becca Zarembinski gave Hamline a 2-0 lead with 9:47 played.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, Hamline came out with a lot of emotion and took the game to us pretty hard in the first period,\u201d Plattsburgh State head coach Kevin Houle said. \u201cWe were back on our heels, and it was tough to fire back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plattsburgh senior Kayla Meneghin cut the Cardinals\u2019 deficit to one 20 seconds after Zambinski\u2019s goal, marking the 188th point of her college career.<\/p>\n
While the Pipers added a goal by sophomore Bre Simon in the period, a calm performance by junior goaltender Kassi Abbott kept Plattsburgh in the game, as the Cardinals afforded Hamline a number of breakaway scoring opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the goalie that I am, and I know that I can keep my team in the game,\u201d Abbott said. \u201c\u201dI knew that they would pick it up, so I had no worries.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cardinals\u2019 coaching staff took the first intermission to rally the team, who Houle said were struggling to find their legs after their double-overtime loss to Elmira Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care if we lose the game,\u201d Houle said. \u201cWe just have to go out and compete, play hard and play for pride.\u201d<\/p>\n
A power-play goal by freshman Annie Katonka at 13:10 of the second brought Plattsburgh within one on the scoreboard before senior Melissa Sheeran\u2019s 97th career goal tied the game 3-3 with 20 seconds remaining in the period.<\/p>\n
\u201cI blacked out, I threw it to the net, and it went in,\u201d Sheeran said.<\/p>\n
Darwitz was confident that her team would remain composed after losing that lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just came down to \u2018you guys deserve this, and you know what we need to do to take it,\u2019\u201d Darwitz said of her message to the team.<\/p>\n
While Katonka\u2019s second goal of the game gave Plattsburgh a 4-3 lead at 9:32 of the third period, the Pipers continued to battle and tied the game 4-4 with 4:44 remaining with Zarembinksi\u2019s second goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came out in that third period buzzing and didn\u2019t get discouraged when Plattsburgh went up,\u201d Darwitz said.<\/p>\n
The score remained 4-4 at the end of regulation, and the teams played a 5-minute overtime period.<\/p>\n
A shootout would have followed, but Dodds scored with 6.2 seconds remaining to send Plattsburgh to its first weekend of consecutive defeats since 2015 and to earn victory for the Pipers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked hard throughout the whole game, and we knew that our time was coming,\u201d Dodds said. \u201cWe just kept pushing and pushing. Once we got that goal, it was the greatest feeling in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the puck went in and the goal light turned on, the Hamline bench jubilantly cleared and piled in celebration in the offensive zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not a third-place celebration, but I think it\u2019s more meaningful than that,\u201d Darwitz said. \u201cI think it was a culmination of a lot of adversity we faced this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pipers of Hamline University won the third-place game at the NCAA Division III women\u2019s ice hockey national championship Saturday, defeating the defending champion, Plattsburgh State, 5-4 in overtime. The win, which was earned by a goal from senior Darby Dodds, ends the Pipers\u2019 season with a record of 22-5-3 and a third-place finish in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[803,807,875],"coauthors":[394],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171835801"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171835806,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171835801\/revisions\/171835806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171835801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171835801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171835801"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=171835801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}