By: Mackenzie Lederer, Howlings
Storrs, CT – The UConn Women’s hockey team defeated the Holy Cross Crusaders 1-0 to snag the final game of their season series on Saturday at the Toscano Family Ice Forum. The win secures the Huskies a home game in the Hockey East Quarterfinals and improves their record to 17-4-2 in conference play and 19-9-2 overall.
UConn took the lead eight minutes into the game when senior forward Jada Habisch scored the game’s lone goal. UConn’s Head Coach, Chris MacKenzie, was not surprised by the low-scoring affair. “You’ll see the tightest games are always the third in our league, so this is no surprise it was going to be like this.”
Habisch stretched her goal-scoring streak with her fifth goal in the past four games and eleventh of the season.
The game’s strongest performance came from senior goaltender Tia Chen in her 19th season start. Chen was flawless in frustrating the Crusaders, making 24 saves for her fourth shutout game and earning her 12th win of the season.
“Anytime there’s no goals, we’re happy,” MacKenzie said, praising Chen’s performance.
On the game-winning tally, freshman Claire Murdoch and sophomore Ashley Allard set up Habisch, who scored on a tap-in. The Crusaders outshot the Huskies 15-7 in the period, but Chen held them in check to keep them off the board at the end of twenty minutes.
The Crusaders continued to pour on the offense and outshot the Huskies in the second frame 11-8.
MacKenzie wasn’t pleased with his team’s performance despite having the lead. “I think we were a little lackluster in the first two periods…Credit to Holy Cross; the way they work, it’s great.”
The Huskies saved their best play for the final twenty minutes of the contest, putting 18 shots on goal to only five for the Crusaders.
“The third period, we were much better…” Mackenzie was elated with the game’s outcome, “We’re fortunate to come out with the victory and happy that it happened.”
The win earned the Huskies all nine possible points against the Crusaders. It was the Huskies’ second series sweep against a conference opponent. In the Hockey East standings, after their win against number 1 Boston University and number 9 Holy Cross, the Huskies are in second place in the conference, trailing BU by just one point.
MacKenzie addressed preparations for his team’s next game against the Providence Friars in his post-game comments. “(We’ll) probably get some rest, and just, you know, look at the video and kind of prepare like we do every other week.”
UConn will face Providence on home ice at 7 p.m. EST next Friday.
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