SUNY Canton Women's Hockey Sweeps Buffalo

The SUNY Canton Kangaroos women's hockey team took down the Buffalo State Bengals in two straight games on Friday, Nov. 22 and Saturday Nov. 23 on their home ice at the Roos House in Canton.

Roos center Karley Cree walked away from the doubleheader with a goal, four assists, 14 shots on goal, and a +6 rating. Tia Mitchell ended up with one goal, five shots on goal and a +2 rating.

Friday's contest didn't heat up until the second period when Canton's Dana Morrison took a play set up by Cree and fired past Buffalo netminder Jordan Lee to open the scoreboard. Several minutes later, Bernadette O'Connell garnered a shorthanded goal with assists from Cree and Jessica Kistabish.

Three minutes later, Kistabish capitalized on a power play with an assist from Cree, bringing in the game-winning goal.

Halfway through the second stanza, the Buffalo contingent would add their first marker from the stick of Nikki Kirchberger with an assist from Jeyna Minnick.

The final nails in Buffalo's coffin came from Kistabish at 13:33 with assists from Cree and Morrison, and 15:20 with a hand from Morrison.

The third period saw Buffalo's final goal at 1:39 from Minnick, assisted by Kara Goodwin, leaving the final score at Roos 5, Bengals 2.

Despite seven powerplay opportunities throughout the day, Buffalo was only able to capitalize once. Overall, they outshot Canton 30 – 25. Lee and Sarah Quigley split netminder duties for Buffalo, logging 20 combined saves. Shayna Dominique stopped 28 pucks for Canton.

Saturday saw Canton come from behind an early lead to knock in four unanswered goals for a 4 – 2 victory.

"I'm excited how they played ... even with 10 minutes left, they battled back," Canton Coach Melissa Lomanto said.

Kirchberger scored back-to-back markers for the Bengals at :45 and 14:01. That was accompanied by nine shots on goal to the Roos' three.

After just over one minute on the ice in the second period, a gaggle of skaters from both sides amassed along the boards to the left side of the Buffalo net, from that Cree flicked an easy shot past Lee, unassisted.

From this point on, Canton's offense steadily picked up. After starting the stanza being outshot two-to-one, by 15:18 they were outshooting their opponents 15 – 14.

"I think one of the things we've been improving on is moving the puck around ... creating scoring opportunities," Lomanto said.

After a scoreless 10 minutes of the closing period, Olga Russell gained control amidst a conglomeration of skaters in front of the Buffalo net and scooted the puck in, tying the game. Caroline Mundy assisted.

Less than three minutes later while shorthanded, Dana Morrison blasted toward Lee on a breakaway. She halted suddenly, throwing ice spray into the air as Lee dove for the save, flicking a wrist shot to the right top shelf for the game-winning goal, unassisted.

With less than a minute to go Buffalo swapped their goaltender for a sixth skater, which would have the opposite effect as intended. Mitchell scored an empty-netter with just over 10 seconds to go.

Buffalo's Lee stopped a total of 23 shots, Canton's Dominique left the ice with 16 saves.

"It was another fantastic game from Shayna Dominique," Lomanto said. "She's been incredibly strong out there, very solid."

Canton's coach noted that despite the victories, her squad needs to pick up the pace on powerplays. She noted that this season they have capitalized twice on 40 overall powerplays, but have killed 30 consecutive shorthanded situations.