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SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY SEAHAWKS

Late goal lifts Seahawks past Wesleyan

Shepherd nets the game-winner with 46 seconds left in regulation.
Shepherd nets the game-winner with 46 seconds left in regulation.

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. - Visiting Salve Regina led for only 46 seconds during its women's ice hockey matchup against non-conference rival Wesleyan Tuesday night, but it was long enough to skate away with a 3-2 victory in the final game of the first semester for Wesleyan.

Owning a decisive 41-10 edge in shots on goal, Salve still found itself trailing 1-0 and 2-1 before tying the game with 2:50 to go in the third period, then grabbing its first lead with :46 left.  Juniors Taylor Shepherd (Quincy, Mass.) and Michaela Chiuccariello (Winchester, Mass.) accounted for the last two Seahawks goals with each scoring her third of the year while assisting on each other's tally.  Chiuccariello got the tying goal after Shepherd sent the puck up the middle into center ice and Chiuccariello caught up to it in stride between two Wesleyan defenders, put on a burst and went in alone on Wesleyan sophomore keeper Corinne Rivard, tucking the puck just inside the right post low.  The game-winner came with Chiuccariello taking a shot from in close on the right that hit the outside of the net, but caromed toward the right circle where Shepherd was the first on the scene and snapped a rising wrist shot into the middle of the net. 

Wesleyan assumed a 1-0 lead at 17:24 of the second period when junior Jordan Schildhaus stuffed in the rebound of a junior Cara Jankowski shot that had been saved by Seahawk freshman keeper Colleen Marcik (Madison, Conn.).  It came on the power play and was the second goal of the season for Schildhaus.  Salve Regina tied the game just 1:17 later as sophomore Danielle Phalon (Stoneham, Mass.), who had earlier in the period been stopped by Rivard on a breakaway, threw the puck toward the Wesleyan net from several feet below the goal line on the left side.  The puck hit the back of Rivard's pad and ricocheted into the goal.  Rivard had just stopped a shot by freshman Michelle Holmes (Goffstown, N.H.) before Phalon tracked down the loose puck.  Phalon is now tied for the team lead with four markers. 

Wesleyan regained the lead with 7:10 to play on a perfectly placed slapshot from the right circle by freshman Jessica Brennan, her team-best fourth goal of the campaign, that went in just inside the right post waist high after receiving a cross-ice pass from Jankowski, again with Wesleyan on the power play. 

Rivard finished the game, just her fourth career start, with a career-best 38 saves.  She had 33 and 32 in her first two starts this year.  Marcik made eight saves for Salve Regina in her fourth win of the season.

The Seahawks return to the ice Friday, December 6 when they travel to Brunswick, Maine to take on Colby at 4 p.m.