WILLIAMSTOWN — The college hockey regular season may be a week away from wrapping up, but for the Williams College women, there are still lessons to be learned from a difficult-to-take loss.
Visiting Middlebury scored four unanswered goals, including a pair of empty-net tallies, in the third period as the fifth-ranked Panthers upended the No. 9 Ephs 5-1 Friday night, in the first game of a home-and-home series.
“We kind of saw that at Conn. last Friday, we get scored on and we took too long to reset,” Williams head coach Meghan Gillis said. “We have to learn to reset faster.”
With the Williams loss, the Ephs fall to fourth place in the NESCAC standings. League-leading Middlebury now has 32 points. Amherst, who battled Trinity to a 1-1 tie but won the shootout 2-0, and Colby are tied for second with 28.5 points. The Mules got there by beating Wesleyan 3-2.
Williams is next with 25.5 points followed by Hamilton with 24.5. The Continentals have this weekend off, and Williams has a game in hand on them.
On Friday night, a slow start for the Ephs put them down 1-0, on a goal by the Panthers’ Susannah Ward.
Williams goalie Erin Pye kept the Ephs in the game during the first period, making 14 of her 26 saves in the opening 20 minutes. The only shot she couldn’t stop was the wrister from Ward, that found the top left corner of the goal.
The Ephs came out in the second period stronger, but couldn’t get one behind Panthers goalie Sophia Will.
The best chance came in the final minute of the second period when Williams’ Chloe Noxon and Lucie Bond broke out on a 2-on-1. Will stood her ground and made the save on Noxon’s shot. Claire Murphy followed up on the rebound, but the senior goalie from Lancaster, N.Y., made that save as well.
Williams had a rough night with the extra skater. The Ephs were 0 for 5 on the power play, which included a minute of 5 on 3. With the two extra skaters, Williams did manage four shots on goal, but had only three shots on the other four penalties.
“We know they play just a super-aggressive style [on the penalty kill] that most teams don’t see all year,” Gillis said. “We knew it was coming and it was still effective on our end. Thankful we were also really strong on the PK, which was good.”
Williams took 12 shots on goal in the second period but came up empty. Less than two minutes into the third, that changed.
Annie Gallagher, who had a second-period goal waived off for a questionable goalie interference whistle, tied the game at 1:50. On the play, her right wing Skyler Moore had the puck at the far post. She passed it to Gallagher, the center on the Williams third line. Gallagher skated from the half wall toward the goal and ripped a shot to Will’s right and it was 1-1.
The Ephs had two great opportunities to take a lead in the third period. The first came with 13:30 left when Zoe Rosenberg and Jaelyn Keiver got behind the Middlebury defense. Keiver’s shot was kicked out by Will. Then, less than two minutes later, Chloe Noxon sprung Lucie Bond, whose shot was stopped by the Middlebury goalie.
The Panthers retook the lead at 9:56 of the third period when Olivia Gordon’s shot from the right point was deflected by Kate Flynn past Pye. Olivia McManus made it 3-1 at 15:27 when her shot from the top of the slot squeezed under Pye’s pads.
Gillis pulled the goalie at 16:39, and Britt Nawrocki scored into the empty net. Trinity Walsh also scored into an empty net, accounting for the 5-1 final.
The teams will meet again Saturday night in Vermont.
Williams returns home next weekend for a two-game series with Bowdoin. These last three games could determine if Williams is home for a NESCAC tournament quarterfinal game.
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Middlebury 1 0 4 — 5Williams 0 0 1 — 1First PeriodM — Ward (Giebler, Walsh), 11:58.Penalties — Gallagher (W) Holding, 2:48. Gordon (M) Tripping, 13:55.Second PeriodNo ScoringPenalties — McInerny (M) Hooking, 3:06. Pincelli (M) High Sticking, 4:10. Mead (W) Hooking, 9:21.Third PeriodW — Gallagher (Moore, Mead), 1:50. M — Flynn (Gordon, Frazier), 9:56. M — McManus (Nawrocki), 15:27. M — Nawrocki (PincellI), 17:26, EN. M — Walsh (Ward), 18:52, EN.Penalties — Pincelli (M) Roughing, 2:19.Saves — Middlebury, Sophia Will 3-12-9 24. Williams, Erin Pye 14-5-7 26.
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