Women’s Ice Hockey Skates Past NEC on Opening Night, 3-2

NASHUA, N.H. – The Rivier women's ice hockey team downed New England Col. by a final of 3-2 in the season opener on Friday evening at Conway Arena, as Molly Dukesherer's goal with 7:55 to play proved to be the game-winner for the Raiders. Rivier advanced to 1-0-0 while the Pilgrims fell to 0-1-0 to begin the new campaign.

Meadow Gilchrist would score the first goal of the contest at 9:06 of the first period on an unassisted bid, beating Rivier goaltender Rachel Symmes to put her team up 1-0. The Raiders would respond with two goals of their own over a 53 second stretch late in the frame, as both Rebecca McKelvey and Brianna Rumptz netted unassisted goals to gain a 2-1 lead before the first intermission.

Early in the second period, NEC would answer with a goal coming off a turnaround shot by Alexis Hornsby to equalize the score at 2-2. Despite 29 shots in the second period alone, the lone goal by Hornsby would be all they could muster as the teams entered the third period in a deadlock.

After back-to-back penalties from the Pilgrims in the final half of the third period caused a 5-on-3 advantage for the Raiders, Rivier's Paige Anger slid the puck to Dukesherer at the right point who fired a wrister past Amy Donnelly to score what would prove to be the game-winning goal.

Symmes managed to make 50 stops in the victory for Rivier, while Donnelly made 15 saves on 18 shots on goal for NEC. Riv was able to go 1-for-4 on powerplay opportunities while also coming up successful on all seven penalty kills.

Rivier will look for a clean sweep in the second game of a home-and-home with NEC on Saturday, Oct. 28. Puck drop from Clement Arena is set for 1:00 p.m.