Nicole Brown Lifts No. 1 QU Women's Ice Hockey Past No. 8 Rensselaer In Double Overtime, 2-1

Saturday, February 27

Hamden, Conn.

2 PM

Quinnipiac University

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Nicole Brown Lifts No. 1 QU Women's Ice Hockey Past No. 8 Rensselaer In Double Overtime, 2-1

2/27/2016 6:50:00 PM | Women's Ice Hockey

Box Score

By: QU Sports Information

BOX SCORE

HAMDEN, Connecticut - Nicole Brown (Oshawa, Ontario) provided the excitement on Saturday afternoon as she scored the game-winning goal for No. 1 Quinnipiac women's ice hockey with 6:36 remaining in the second overtime to come-from-behind to defeat the No. 8 Rensselaer Engineers, 2-1, and advance to the ECAC Hockey Semifinals for the third consecutive season.

As the top seeded team, the Bobcats will host the semifinals and finals of the ECAC Hockey playoffs to take place on Saturday, March 5 and Sunday, March 6 at High Point Solutions Arena with the times still to be determined.

With the victory, Quinnipiac women's ice hockey head coach Cassandra Turner recorded her 28^th victory to set the NCAA record for most wins by a women's ice hockey head coach in their first season. Turner surpassed Minnesota's Brad Frost, former New Hampshire head coach Brian McCloskey and former Manhattanville head coach Nicole Hall who all won 27 games in their first seasons as NCAA women's ice hockey head coaches.

The Bobcats came back to defeat the Engineers for the second straight game as they extended their unbeaten streak to six games and winning streak to four games, improving to 28-2-5 (16-2-4 ECAC Hockey). The Engineers loss is their third straight and they fall to 10-17-7 (8-9-5 ECAC Hockey).

Brown's goal was her seventh of the season as she scored her third game-winner of the season. Brown skated with the puck from the left boards and through the left face-off circle where she fired her shot and it was saved by Rensselaer goaltender Lovisa Selander. The rebound kicked out into the slot and Brown crashed on her own rebound, backhanding the puck across the ice past Selander for the game-winning goal and send the Bobcats to the ECAC Hockey semifinals.

Early in the first period, Taylar Cianfarano (Oswego, New York) scored her 28^th goal of the season to tie the game with 12:48 to go in the period. Cianfarano's 28 goals are tied with Kelly Babstock's 2012-13 season total for the second most by a Quinnipiac women's ice hockey player in program history.

Quinnipiac's offense tallied 68 shots on goal in the victory, their most shots on goal in a single game since Nov. 28, 2009 when they fired 65 shots on goal against the Sacred Heart Pioneers. Over the past three games against Rensselaer, the Bobcats tallied 180 shots, including 128 in the postseason. The Bobcats power play continued to be effective as they went 1 for 3 and have scored at least one power-play goal in 12 of the last 14 games. Rensselaer was 0 for 3 on the advantage, the sixth straight game in which the Bobcats have not allowed a power-play goal.

Junior goaltender Sydney Rossman (Excelsior, Minnesota) needed just 12 saves over the 93:24 of game time to pick up her 28^th victory of the season as she extends her program record win total.

Rensselaer took a 1-0 lead just 25 seconds into the game as Jaimie Grigsby scored her third goal of the season and second in as many games. Grigsby picked off a Quinnipiac pass back to the defense and tipped it into the offensive zone. She skated with speed on Rossman where she rifled it top shelf for the goal.

Cianfarano even up the score nearly seven minutes later to bring the Bobcats right back in it. Cianfarano skated the puck from the right point into the high slot, where she tried to feed the puck to Melissa Samoskevich (Sandy Hook, Connecticut) but the puck was knocked but to Cianfarano by a Rensselaer defenseman. Cianfarano fired the puck through traffic where it ricocheted off the defense and past Selander for the goal.

Both teams were scoreless for the next 86 minutes of game action before Brown sent the Quinnipiac faithful home happy with her double overtime game-winner.

Quinnipiac will wait until Sunday to find out their opponent in the ECAC Hockey semifinals. As of 7 PM on Saturday night, No. 2 Clarkson advanced to the semifinals while No. 3 Princeton tied up its series with No. 6 St. Lawrence, 1-1. No. 4 Colgate and No. 5 Harvard have puck drop set for 7:05 PM.