Quinnipiac’s goalie Felicia Frank, left, stands proud of her proper pad to cease Yale’s Hannah Weyerhaeuser throughout Saturday’s ECAC championship recreation at the 1980 Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid. (Enterprise picture – Parker O’Brien)
LAKE PLACID – Quinnipiac’s Mia Lopata walked into her ECAC women’s hockey match press convention at the Olympic Center on Saturday and plopped down the championship trophy.
“I don’t lose in this building,” she mentioned, with a smile.
She actually doesn’t.
The Clinton native captained the Bobcats to the convention title, defeating the Yale Bulldogs 5-1 in the first-ever ECAC women’s hockey championship held at the 1980 Herb Brooks Arena.
It’s almost equivalent to how Lopata left the ice the final time she was right here, when she guided her Clinton High School ladies’ hockey crew to a NYSPHSAA state championship greater than six years in the past.
The Quinnipiac women’s hockey crew smiles after successful the women’s ECAC title on Saturday in Lake Placid. (Enterprise picture – Parker O’Brien)
“In all seriousness, it’s such a full circle moment for my hockey career,” mentioned Lopata, now a graduate pupil with Quinnipiac. ”If you had informed me after I was in highschool that I used to be gonna win an ECAC championship right here, I don’t know that I might have believed you.”
Well, it’s now a actuality.
The match’s third-seeded Bobcats secured their second-ever ECAC title and their first since 2016. They did so, following a dominating effort from its goaltender, Felicia Frank, who stopped 31 photographs whereas incomes the match’s most excellent participant award.
Ella Johnson scored twice, whereas Avery Bairos, Zoe Uens and Emerson Jarvis additionally scored for Quinnipiac, which improved to 28-8-3 general and locked up the computerized berth to the NCAA Division I match. Makayla Watson added two assists.
Mariya Rauf scored Yale’s lone purpose. She made a slick transfer previous Frank, after accumulating a go from Jordan Ray in entrance of the web to chop the Bobcats’ result in 3-1 early in the third interval. Samson Frey stopped 22 photographs in the web for the Bulldogs, whereas Molly Boyle additionally picked up an help in the “disappointing” loss.
Quinnipiac’s Emerson Jarvis and Yale’s Gracie Gilkyson get snarled throughout Saturday’s ECAC Championship recreation in Lake Placid. (Enterprise picture – Parker O’Brien)
“This is not how you draw it up when you dream about getting up on championship day,” Yale head coach Mark Bolding mentioned. “But we’re proud of our team. We’re a heck of a team, but we’re not done playing hockey.”
The Bulldogs entered Saturday’s title recreation, having scored at the least one purpose in every of their final 9 intervals – together with their 7-2 rout over Cornell in Friday’s semifinal recreation. The crew’s high-powered offense got here from arduous strain in the impartial zone, resulting in a strong forecheck.
It pressured the Bobcats to return to the fundamentals, Quinnipiac head coach Cassandra Turner mentioned. Get pucks in, and get pucks out.
“We had some moments where it was hard to do that,” she mentioned. “But I thought that we were consistent enough with it, that it honestly really allowed us to play to our strengths. It gave us some opportunities to use our speed.”
Johnson opened the scoring with a breakaway purpose early in the first interval, after making the most of aggressive play by a Yale defender and skating previous her.
Quinnipiac’s Mia Lopata hoists the ECAC championship trophy on Saturday in Lake Placid. (Enterprise picture – Parker O’Brien)
The Bobcats then took agency management of the contest, with targets in the second and third intervals, to push the result in 3-0. Bairos first tipped in a shot in the second interval, earlier than Uens buried a one-timer in the third. Jarvis and Johnson scored empty-netters at the finish of the closing interval.
As the buzzer sounded and celebrations began, Turner informed herself one factor: “Don’t cry.”
“It’s so hard to get here, let alone win this game,” she mentioned. “Our league is a gauntlet. It’s so challenging. To get all the pieces together, to get to this place and then to execute and build on the semis and win the final. It’s hard, it’s really hard.”
It actually is, that’s why it’s taken the Bobcats a decade to win one other ECAC championship. Turner, who coached the 2016 crew, mentioned a few of her former gamers had already reached out to congratulate her.
“Some of the girls from the 2016 team were, like, ‘I’m gonna name my first child, Jarvis,’ or ‘I’m going to name my second child, Frank,’” she mentioned. “They are totally 2 feet into this, too. I think that’s what this is all about to me. This is your job, your life and a career, but these women are my family.”
Quinnipiac’s Jade Barbirati reveals off her champion’s hat after beating Yale in the women’s ECAC title on Saturday in Lake Placid. (Enterprise picture – Parker O’Brien)
Lopata mentioned successful the convention title is a testomony to how far the program has are available in 10 years.
“I’m so excited that we made it happen again,” she mentioned.
But she had little question they’d get it carried out in Lake Placid.
“Before the game started, I was like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna win,’” she mentioned. “Honestly, before I even came here, I got my nails done. I was so excited. I was like ‘My nails need to be done when I lift that trophy.’”
Her confidence resonated with the crew. It’s not arduous to see why, together with her goaltender, turning away shot after shot.
And seemingly each time, the Swedish goaltender delivered. It’s why her teammates described her as the coronary heart and soul of the crew.
“She’s played every single game and backstopped us to some incredible wins,” Watson mentioned. “We’re so lucky to have her. She just keeps getting better every day. She pushes her teammates, and she’s also just so calm back there.”
Yale completed with a 32-27 benefit in photographs.
“We had a lot of great chances,” Bolding mentioned. ”So, what do you do now? You use this for motivation. It’s one recreation we’ve been on a sizzling streak. We might flip rhubarb right into a pie and do one thing with it as a result of we’re taking part in subsequent week.”
Up subsequent, Quinnipiac will compete in the opening spherical of the NCAA match in opposition to the Franklin Pierce University Ravens at 8 p.m. on Thursday in Madison, Wisconsin. Yale will tackle the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs of their first spherical at 6 p.m. on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.
The Princeton Tigers, which suffered a 2-1 additional time loss to the Bobcats in Friday’s different semifinal, will face the UConn Huskies at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the first spherical of the NCAA match in State College, Pennsylvania.