ORONO, Maine -- The University of Maine Women's Ice Hockey team dropped a 5-2 decision to #3 Mercyhurst Saturday afternoon at Alfond Arena. Maine drops to 2-1-0 on the season while Mercyhurst improves to 3-0-0. Maine's Brittany Ott (St. Clair Shores, Mich.) set a new school record for saves in a game as she made 69 stops against the Lakers. Senior Jennie Gallo (Castlegar, British Columbia) tallied a pair of goals for the Black Bears.
Mercyhurst kicked off the scoring 2:11 into the first period when Kelley Steadman took a feed from Bailey Bram and put the Lakers up 1-0.
The Lakers would extend their lead to 2-0 12:58 into the first period when senior captain Meghan Agosta notched her third goal of the season.
The Black Bears would cut the Mercyhurst lead in half when Gallo capitalized on a power play for her third goal of the season. Dominique Goutsis (Coquitlam, British Columbia) fed a pass to Chloe Tinkler (Wabush, Newfoundland) who put a shot on Laker goaltender Hillary Pattenden. Pattenden kicked the shot wide but right to Gallo who found the back of the net.
Agosta would find the net two more times, once in the second period and then just 26 seconds into the third period, to put Mercyhurst up 4-1.
After Vicki Bendus extended the lead for the Lakers to 5-1, Gallo would pick up Maine's second goal of the contest. Tinkler kick started the play by skating the puck into the right circle. She slid a pass to Myriam Croussette (Bair-Comeau, Quebec) who then found Gallo right in front of the net. Gallo then beat Pattenden to make it 5-2.
The Black Bears would continue to fight for the final 5:31 of play but came up short, losing the game 5-2 to Mercyhurst.
The Black Bears were 2-9 on the power play as Mercyhurst was 1-13.
Ott made many top notch saves on her way to a school-record 69 saves. The old record was set in 1999 by Amanda Cronin against Brown University. Cronin recorded 66 saves in that game.
Pattenden improves to 3-0-0 on the season as she made 20 saves in the victory for Mercyhurst.
The Black Bears return to action tomorrow at 1 p.m. as they close out the two game series with Mercyhurst at Alfond Arena.