From bfisk@netspace.org Sun Mar 22 20:53:58 1998 Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 20:53:42 -0500 (EST) From: Brian Fisk To: Hockey-L Subject: Re: UNH Women 4 - Brown 1 OK, so I'm a little late... :-) But here is another perspective on Saturday's game. Brown opened the scoring early in the first when Melissa Rennison, parked in front umarked, got the feed from Jill Graat and beat Alicia Roberts down low at 2:15. Play continued back and forth for most of the period, although Brown was looking a little sloppy and UNH was starting to come alive. Tina Carrabba got a power play goal at 17:49 when she aired one from the left point that sailed past Ali Brewer's glove. Richard Hungerford said it was deflected but I didn't see it -- it looked like she just misjudged it from my point of view (in line with the shot). Kari Wilson got the gamewinner for UNH at 2:26. Parked at the right side of the crease without any challenge from the Brown defense, she swatted one toward Brewer. She made the stop, but Wilson was able to knock the rebound home. Brown looked tired already, and the injuries to the team started to show their effect -- front-liner Marcie Deering was undressed after a knee injury Friday night, and Brewer was reportedly playing with an injured hamstring. On top of this defenseman Jaime Abel limped to the bench midway through the period, which didn't help matters much. Brown applied some offensive pressure halfway through but caught some unlucky breaks, and Roberts was solid in goal. Kerry Maher got the insurance goal when she took a long pass in from the blue line, skated around an injured Jaime Abel (who apparently was out for one last go at it), and beat Brewer on the glove side at 18:18. With Abel out Brown's first line was entirely dismantled for the third period since Tamra Jones had to be pulled back. They generally looked weary while UNH was playing some fine hockey. Melissa McKenzie scored for UNH on the powerplay at 4:32 when she batted in a high one from Carrabba. The Brown contingent of fans screamed for a high stick but on the replay (which was unavailable to the referee) it looked good (though borderline). Although Brown had the advantage of a string of favorable power plays during the remainder of the period, they couldn't capitalize. In the end I was not ashamed to applaud UNH as well as my preferred team, as they played the clearly superior game. Congratulations! The FleetCenter was a nice venue given its size. Granted it doesn't have the intimacy of most college rinks, but the views were fairly good. It was nice to see a (relatively) sizable group of fans there for the Final. It was almost surreal to see a women's match there. Thank you everyone for coming! I was sad to see Brown play poorly in the final but they were beat up after Friday's grueling win over Northeastern and caught some bad breaks on Saturday. It was too bad we didn't see a more competitive match. I agreed with the All-Tournament team in general and certainly the Brown picks -- Ali Brewer was wonderful to watch as always (as a crack goalie I especially enjoy it), Cara Gardner played well on defense and Carly Regnier is always working hard at forward, as she showed with two goals on Friday. Similarly Stephanie Acres was dazzling for Northeastern on Friday and the UNH pics (Winny Brodt, Brandy Fisher and Nicki Luongo) were a pleasure as well. I also look forward to excitement from Carrabba and first-year Michelle Thornton in the coming seasons. Even after missing on Saturday, Brown had a great season and I'm looking forward to next year! Unofficial Brown Hockey web page: http://www.netspace.org/users/bfisk/hockey -- -- Brian Fisk bfisk@netspace.org Brown Women's Hockey: 1998 ECAC Champions!