UND women claw out 3-2 win against RIT

Seal of the University of North Dakota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grand Forks, ND – The University of North Dakota women came into the game riding a five-game winning streak with a win over Clarkson and sweeps over conference foes BSU and UMD.

Tonight, the opponent for the North Dakota Women’s team was the RIT Tigers of the CHA. Last season, the Tigers won a NCAA Division III title and after they collected their tourney hardware; the Tigers made the jump to Division I women’s hockey.

The UND women knew they were going to be in for a tough fight as the Tigers are a team that was loaded with juniors and seniors.

UND looked good early as they would jump to a two goal lead with goals from Monique Lamoureux and Michele Karvinen less than seven minutes apart. It looked like UND was going to run away and hide but the Tigers didn't go away quietly.

The Tigers would score a goal at 16:27 mark of the first period with a goal by senior forward Kim Schlattman.

That would be all of the scoring in the first period for both teams. UND would out-shoot RIT 10-9.

With UND freshman forward Becca Kohler in the box for hooking; RIT would even the score with what I would describe as a beautiful power play goal. At the 08:57 mark of the second period, RIT Tiger junior forward Kortney Kunchika would take a pass from senior forward Airanne Yokoyama and pull the UND goalie Jorid Dagfinrud off of the right post with some slick stick handling and deposited the puck behind her.

Tie game.

Michelle Karvinen would miss a glorious opportunity in the waning second of the second period standing at side of the Tiger net but the junior forward shot the puck wide of the net.

UND would out-shoot the Tigers 10-6 in the second period.

After the game, UND junior forward Michele Karvinen was asked about the shot that went wide; while she was in the paint just to the side of the Tiger net.

“I came down, I knew Joss [Jocelyne Lamoureux] would probably pass it to me and I should have been a little stronger on my stick and put it into the net,” Karvinen said. “Yeah, basically I should have been stronger on the stick.”

With Tiger junior defenseman Melissa Bromley in the box for cross checking, UND would take the lead again at the 02:08 mark of the third period with a power play goal from Monique Lamoureux – her second of the game – as she buried the puck at the goal mouth as the RIT goalie Laura Chamberlain wasn’t able to get over the right point.

The Tigers would put up a valiant fight at the end of the game, but were unable to get one more shot past Dagfinrud. UND would survive one final surge as the Tigers would ring a shot off straight of the left post at the .54 second mark of the third period. It was a very lucky break for UND because Dagfinrud was moving to her left and the whole right side of the net was left exposed.

Whew! That was close.

In the end, the Tigers would prove to be a tough formidable opponent as they got in the shooting lanes and made it tough for UND to get any time and space. Tomorrow night’s game will be no cake walk for the green and white and they will have to put up a better effort if they are going to prolong the winning streak.

With the win tonight, the Green and White stretch the winning streak to six games.

After the game, the UND head coach Brian Idalski seemed was definitely less than pleased with the play of his team and had this to say.

“I thought we were a little lethargic,” Idhalski said. I thought we were a little sloppy.  I didn't think we executed well – something for us to learn from and do a little better tomorrow.

Leading UND on the score sheet was Michelle Karvinen (1g-1a—2pts) and Monique Lamoureux (2g-1a—3pts). Junior goalie Laura Chamberlain was stellar in net for the Tigers stopping 25 of 28 shots.

Same two teams play again tomorrow night at 7:07 pm.

[Box score]