The Lakers scored two power play goals backed by a Mariah Madrigal shutout to help Oswego State walk to a 5-0 victory Friday night at the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena over the New England Pilgrims.
Junior Brianna Rice found the back of the net twice, once with the man advantage, along with three other Lakers in Friday’s match up. The Lakers dominated all game long tallying 58 shots to beat the Pilgrims. The biggest positive for Coach Dillon and the Lakers was their time of possession despite not scoring in the first 20. They controlled the pace of play during the first period and eventually the entire game.
“We were excited with the level of intensity,” Dillon said. “We were excited that we controlled the puck. We had shots. We were burying pucks in the goaltender. We stayed the course. [When] you’re controlling the puck things will start going in and when they go in they go in in bunches.”
During their first game this year, an exhibition against the Barrie Junior Sharks, the Lakers took too many unnecessary penalties that killed their momentum. During tonight’s game the Lakers stayed disciplined and only went to the box twice compared the Pilgrims’ 10 trips.
“One of our keys to success today was disciplined hockey,” Dillon said. “Anytime you can play disciplined, whether it’s staying out of the box or doing the little things [like] doing your job, shorts shifts. All the things that are important, it pays off and you can see what happens when a team is undisciplined. We made them pay.”
During the second period and into the third after the Lakers put up three goals in the first ten minutes, two in a span of a minute and 31 seconds, New England got chippy to try to knock Oswego off their game. Needless to say, it didn’t work. The Lakers ignored the scrums in front and dirty plays for the most part and helped them move past the Pilgrims.
“I have no problems with my players protecting my goalies,” Dillon said. “What I don’t like is retaliation. It’s usually the retaliation that gets caught. To me that’s just an undisciplined play. We really focused in between the second and third period in making sure that we don’t buy into that level of play.”
Two power play goals scored by Brianna Rice and Kendall Appelbaum were rewards for what was a dominate power play all night. The Lakers had countless chances against New England’s penalty kill while cycling and getting a variety of looks on the man advantage.
“They were a pretty passive [penalty kill],” Dillon said. “I think we could’ve moved the puck a little bit better, we forced things. We forced a few pucks. I’d rather us control it a little bit more to move it around to get the PK box or diamond to shift.”
A full 60 minute effort by the Lakers was much needed and refreshing after being knocked off last weekend. The Pilgrims had a decent second period as they put up 10 shots during that frame. They only put up six through the rest of the game.
Mariah Madrigal was solid in net after getting the call to start after Tori Trovato didn’t start as she was dealing with the flu.
The Lakers are back in action on Halloween at 3 p.m. against the Castleton Spartans at the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena trying to build on today’s success and try to improve to 2-0 to start the year.
