The Lake Forest College women's hockey team hosted and defeated College of St. Scholastica 4-2 Saturday evening in the opener of their Northern Collegiate Hockey Association Quarterfinal series. Forester freshman Emily Wybo assisted on the contest's first goal and scored the official game-winner.
Wybo and junior Angie Chronis set up sophomore Stephanie Slinde on the game's first goal at the 17:16 mark of the opening period. The power play goal was Slinde's seventh score of the season and the home team was still ahead 1-0 at the first intermission.
Chronis, who along with Slinde was on the ice for all four Forester goals, also assisted on freshman Laura Reckdenwald's sixth score of the year at 11:03 in the second period. St. Scholastica responded with a power play goal just 54 seconds later but Lake Forest answered back 50 seconds after that with Wybo's score. Freshman Marissa Weber recorded her first career assist on Wybo's third goal of the season. Things settled down and the score remained 3-1 in favor of the Foresters going into the third period.
The Saints pulled back to within a goal 88 seconds into the final frame but were unable to get the puck past Lake Forest sophomore goaltender Stacey Dierking again in the game. Senior Jessica Dare closed out the scoring with her 10th goal of the year at 4:23. She was assisted by freshman Morgan Pope.
Dierking finished the evening with 26 saves, raising her record on the year to 8-5-2 and her save percentage to .924.
The Foresters out-shot the Saints 34-28 in the contest.
Lake Forest is now 14-9-2 and St. Scholastica 13-8-5 on the season. The same two teams will face off again in the second game of the series tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. The Foresters need a win or tie to advance to next weekend's NCHA O'Brien Cup Tournament at UW-River Falls while the Saints need a victory in the 5:00 contest and another in the ensuing 20-minute mini-game to advance.
