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Even though they suffered their first loss of the season against Brown University last Friday, the University of Maine women’s ice hockey team will look to improve on their recordwhen they play a two-game set against the Wayne State Warriors this weekend. The series will be played at Alfond Arena.
The first game against the Warriors will start at 11 a.m. on Saturday. The series will conclude at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Over the weekend, the Black Bears were defeated by the No. 10 Black Bears 3-0 only to lose to St. Jeromes 5-3 on Saturday. Sunday was a different story, UMaine was able to defeat the Quebec-based team 3-1.
“I think that offense takes care of defense, and I thought we worked on getting to the loose pucks and really concentrating on not having teams get second and third chances,” said head coach Guy Perron. “I think we need to continue what we do and get better on things that benefit our team.”
Outside of the five goals they have scored during the season, one of the things that has benefited the Black Bears has been their defense. According to the Hockey East team standings, UMaine is first in goals allowed with five.
“The first couple of games there were some rebounds that the other teams were able to score off of. I feel that is one thing you have to correct right off the bat,” said goaltender Rachel Gettings. “I’ve just tried to control them better so they will not be able to get the extra shot.”
During Wednesday’s practice, one of the aspects of the game on which the team focused, was its special teams. In their games against St. Jerome, the Black Bears were able to score two power play goals, after going 0-16 in their previous three games. As for their shorthanded play, the team gave up only one power play goal on 16 opportunities in their opening series against the University of Vermont only to concede five over the weekend.
“You have to practice like the way you play and making sure that we execute our drills in practice so that in the game they can come together,” said senior defenseman Laura Maddin. “Basically we got to play smart and coach told us we have to play with our heads and on Sunday we did that because he only had eight penalties compared to the 19 we had the game before.”
As for Wayne State, the Warriors will travel to Orono with a record of 2-2-2. Last weekend, the Warriors tied Clarkson twice in a two-game slate. Despite the outcome against Clarkson, their two wins come against one of UMaine’s rivals Boston College.
“I know we played them when a few people were freshman; and I heard they were a weak team; but they did beat Boston College,” said forward Brigitte LaFlamme. “We do not look at the rankings, and we play them as if they were the top team in the nation. We just look at it as another game.”
