St. Thomas first-year forward Lauren Stenslie scored her first collegiate goal and senior forward Megan Korzack scored her first goal of the season with 6:03 left in the third period, securing a 3-2 win over St. Cloud State University Friday at St. Thomas Ice Arena.
The Huskies (2-3, 0-3 WCHA) led the Tommies (2-3, 2-3 WCHA) with 39 shots on net but only slipped two past first-year goaltender Saskia Maurer, who was in net for the only other Tommie win this season.
“You can see (Maurer’s) competitive nature on the ice; I mean, she’s trying to block shots with her head and diving across and getting her pads where they need to be,” assistant coach Bethany Brausen said. “She is really really fun to watch.”
Junior forward Allie Monrean clinched the first goal of the game and her first of the season giving the Tommies a 1-0 advantage at the 9:26 mark. At 10:54, the Huskies tied it up for 16 seconds until Stenslie scored a goal assisted by Anna Solheim that restored the Tommie lead.
After the first period, the Huskies came out quick and kept the puck in their offensive zone most of the second and third period; at the end of the game, they outshot the Tommies 39-17.
Maurer faced a tight battle at the end but trusted in her teammates to help her out.
“I think it’s an interesting situation but I love it because anything can happen,” Maurer said. “I knew my teammates would do a good job.”
Brausen noticed that the team gained confidence from their first win against Bemidji State University on Oct. 2.
“You get a win and you’re like ‘hey, we belong in this league,’ and it was just organic confidence there,” Brausen said. “You could just tell there was a sense of poise and comfort on the ice.”
The Tommies face the Huskies again tomorrow in St. Cloud; Brausen hopes the team can bring the energy from today’s game to bag another win.
“I’ve been around hockey long enough to say the tendency is you come off a win and you feel pretty good because you got a win,” Brausen said. “But it’s going to be a good test to say it was good enough that we got to win against a great opponent but now we have to challenge ourselves for one more.”
Lauren Price can be reached at lauren.price@stthomas.edu.
Olivia Paradise can be reached at para4336@stthomas.edu.