HANOVER, N.H. – The Endicott women's club ice hockey team traveled to Dartmouth on Sunday to finish up their weekend of hockey. The night prior the Gulls scrimmaged against Salem State to get prepared for their schedule ahead and it paid off as they shut down the Big Green 3-1. Freshman Katie Saunders (Barrington, R.I.) tallied her first career goal and the game winning goal in the contest. Endicott is continuing their season strong as they earn their third straight victory.
Joining Saunders in scoring was senior Jesse Bilafer (Concord, Mass.) and junior Samantha Parr (Dedham, Mass.). The strong line of Bilafer, Saunders and freshman Morgan Manning (Andover, Mass.) was a force offensively as they accounted for two of the three goals and three assists for the Blue and Green.
Saunders game winning goal came in the third period after Bilafer came off a strong rush into the offensive zone, who then slipped the puck to Manning behind the net. Manning continued the strong push as she worked hard against Dartmouth defense to send the puck across the crease to find Saunders who was then able to sneak the puck past the Big Green goaltender to take the 2-1 lead.
Later through the third period Parr got her chance at the back of the net after she had been skating her best game of the season as she controlled the puck off a scramble in front of the goal and pushed it past the defense to take the 3-1 victory.
Junior goaltender Taylor Witham (Cumberland, Maine) was solid between the pipes as she came out with the victory with 31 stops. In the second period she was able to keep her Gulls squad in the game after she stopped Dartmouth captain MacKenzie Branson on a breakaway opportunity to keep the game at a 1-1 tie.
Coach Munzing could not be more pleased with the outcome as he stated "My assistant Coach Don Parr did a great job juggling his defensive pairing to get the right match ups against the speedy Dartmouth forwards, and it was so great to be able to take that long trip and be welcomed by a group of parents who made the trek out to Hanover to support us."
The Gulls will take the victory and look ahead to Saturday, November 9th and 10th when they play a double header weekend against MIT and Harvard. The MIT game on Saturday is set for 5:00 p.m. while the Sunday game against the Crimson is set to start at 1:30 p.m.
