The University of Rhode Island’s women’s club hockey team hosted a two-game series against the University of Massachusetts-Amherst over the weekend for the second time this season.
Although the Rams were coming off a weekend series on the road against the University of Arizona the weekend prior, Rhody started off strong defensively on Saturday.
The first and second periods remained scoreless for both teams. Third-year goalie Morgan Ainley led the way for the Rams, picking up 26 saves in the first two periods. However, that defense wouldn’t last long in the third for Rhode Island, as first-year Kelsie Partridge found the back of the net within the first five minutes of the period. Second-year Joanna Zhu added another goal shortly after, propelling UMass to a 2-0 victory in the first game of the series.
The momentum carried over into Sunday for UMass, as they dominated the game from start to finish. The Rams were scoreless through three periods, and second-year Brook Borges led the Minutemen with two goals as they found themselves another victory, 8-0.
Although URI was unable to come out of the weekend with a win, Rhode Island Head Coach Nikki Friesen felt her team showed contrasting performances over the weekend.
“There were different stories on both Saturday and Sunday,” Friesen said. “I thought we played a really solid second and third period on Saturday, but our lackluster first period resulted in us not having a ton of momentum going into the end of the game and then just giving up two goals. Sunday, I think UMass kind of proved why they’re currently ranked and probably headed to the national tournament.”
With now up to four meetings between URI and UMass this season, Friesen had expectations of what she’d see over the weekend.
“All of our games with UMass are generally really competitive, and I think that they are a beautiful team,” Friesen said. “They had a really good goalie in net for both of their games, but I think we were a little bit disappointed that we didn’t get one win on them, especially at home.”
Now 0-4 against UMass on the year, the Rams are currently in the longest homestretch of the season. Friesen feels that some improvements need to be made going into the upcoming weekend series against Michigan State, who stands at 15-6.
“I think we definitely have some things to work on and need to build on from earlier in the season,” Friesen said. “I think we compete in every single game, but I think especially with big games against good teams, we tend to show up and really dig in and surprise competition in that fashion, but I’d like to see that turn into wins here shortly.”
The Rams look to get back in the win column in another weekend series against Michigan State at home on Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 4:30 p.m.
