The hometown Concordia Stingers started off the 2005 Theresa Humes Invitational Tournament on the right foot with a 3-2 victory over the Plattsburgh State Cardinals.
The Stingers, who were playing their first game in almost a month, got a shorthanded goal by Dominique Rancour less than five minutes into the game to get a 1-0 lead. A power play goal by Janie Brassard late in the 2nd period brought them up 3-2 to win the game against the Cardinals who lost for only the 2nd time in 10 exhibition or regular season games.
Brassard was serving an interference penalty when Rancour intercepted a pass right up the middle by a Cardinal defender and beat the goalie through the five-hole. Concordia kept up the quick start when, less than three minutes later, Genevieve Dupuis got a pass from left winger Kelly Sudia and roofed a wrist shot past Plattsburgh goaltender Carolyne Roy.
Roy, for her part, kept her team in the game making huge saves throughout the first period and especially early in the second when she stopped two shots from Isabelle Caron and another from Tawnya Danis.
“Their goaltending really kept them in it early but we had some good things happen,” said Stingers head coach Les Lawton after the game. Lawton also said his team had no problems adjusting to the play of a team they had never played before.
Plattsburgh came back with two quick goals late in the 2nd period, including a powerplay marker by Chantalle Rye who was by far, at least in this reporter’s opinion, Plattsburgh’s best player on the night.
Concordia didn’t let the game stay tied for long though. Janie Brassard had a tremendous individual effort beating out two Plattsburgh defenders and then sliding the puck five-hole on Roy.
Concordia’s goalie, Cecilia Anderson also came up huge when she needed to. Two stops on Lynn Taylor and a 2-on-0 save on Elizabeth Gibson kept the Cardinals off the scoreboard on their two best chances in the 3rd period and kept the Stingers in front for good.
