Friar Skaters Shutout Huskies 2-0

The getting was never good for legitimately stimulating stretches in the Providence College Women's Hockey clash with Connecticut last Sunday, Nov. 16. For both of the contesting offensive brigades, the recipe for a protracted, let alone fruitful, scoring opportunity was more elusive than Sarah Palin was to the national press guild prior to Nov. 4.

But when an even seven minutes remained in a daylong zilch-to-nada arm wrestling bout, the door opened warmly on the Friars in the form of a 5-on-3 advantage, made possible by Rebecca Hewett's holding infraction at the 11:57 mark and Cristin Allen's cross-checking citation 62 ticks later.

And on the opposite end of an opportunistic timeout, Providence pounced with 5:57 to spare. Freshman Laura Veharanta shipped a magnetic, low-flying feed out of the deep far alley for sophomore Alyse Ruff to tilt home upstairs.

"We had worked on our power play the entire week and we had watched videos on them," noted Ruff. "So it was the kind of thing that we were looking to do against them-a backdoor play like that. Laura gave me a great pass and I was able to find the open net."

Up till then, the Friars had been afforded only two power play shots over four preceding opportunities and only 20 total bids altogether on the day. UConn, conversely, squeezed a slightly weightier bushel of 30 shots on a collected goaltender in freshman Genevieve Lacasse, including five on a single power play midway through the second period.

But from the long-awaited icebreaker onward, the Friars paced themselves to a grittily executed 2-0 win, finalized by freshman Kate Bacon's empty netter with 20 seconds on the clock, and thus nabbed the coveted initial upper hand in the Battle for Southern New England.

"When they're ahead, they're a very tough team to come back against," said head coach Bob Deraney. "But when we're ahead of them, it opens things up for us, and as you can see, they're a very disciplined, well-coached team that just tries to wear you down.

"That's what I'm most proud of. We won the mental battle."

The win pole-vaulted Providence-now 3-2-1 in Hockey East games-over the now 3-3 Huskies in the middleweight sect of the league standings, giving PC sole possession of fourth place for the moment.

"It was a huge win," said senior captain Brittany Simpson, who was credited with the first assist on Ruff's clinching conversion. "It's always a good contest between us (and Connecticut), so it means a lot that we won our first meeting, but we still have two more games against them, so we'll have to keep that up throughout the year."

The Friars, who will not rekindle hostilities with any conference cohabitants for two more weeks, will conduct a home-and-home set with UConn over the weekend of Jan. 31-Feb. 1. Until then, their expressed task is to build on an active hot streak of 4-0-1 in their last five games and their best overall start (6-5-1) since the 2005-06 season.

Additionally, six of their next nine ventures, which will be spaced out in large part by the traditional December deceleration that comes with final exams and the holiday break, are interleague affairs-most notably this Friday, Nov. 21, when No. 10-ranked Mercyhurst drops in at Schneider Arena. So while the current congestion in the Hockey East standings isn't naturally inclined to subside just yet, there resonates an invitation to make long-craved ripples on the national landscape.

"Not a cliché, but they're all big. They really are," said Deraney. "This (Connecticut) game had some significance because, one, it's the beginning of our season series with them, so it was important to kick that off in our favor.

"Secondly, it is two valuable points in the league. And they're a very tough team. They have to take away points from other teams so it's important that we take as many points as we can from them.

"And lastly, hey, we've got a nice little winning streak going. In the last nine games, we're 6-2-1…So you can't get lost in the numbers. You just look back on where you were and, like I've said, we've come a long way. We still have so far to go, but this is a nice stepping-stone for us."