RYE, N.Y. – The Manhattanville College women's hockey team was defeated in Saturday afternoon's series finale against Utica. The 7-2 loss resulted in a split for the weekend between the second and third ranked teams in the UCHC, while the Valiants fall to 10-5-1 on the season and 10-2-0 in conference play.

A completely different story from yesterday's defensive clash, offense took center stage with nine goals between the two teams. The Pioneers wasted little time getting things started, scoring three goals in the first 12 and a half minutes of play. Holly Silva scored the opener 3:50 into the contest before a pair of Rebecca Brown power play goals sported the visitors a three goal lead.

The Valiants got one back before the period ended as Gabrielle Cox (Niverville, NY/Ichabod Crane High School) continued her stellar weekend following last night's three point performance with the first tally for the home squad. Cox was set up by Grace Felicio (Holden, Mass./Wachusett Regional) and Taylor Ham (Saugerties, N.Y./Millbrook School) to get Manhattanville back into the game at 15:51 into the first.

After the four goal first, things calmed down a bit for the second, with Georgiana Santullo representing the only score of the period 18 minutes in, putting Utica back up by three. Kerry Carr (New Hartford, N.Y./Millbrook School) went on to her score her second goal of the weekend and her fourth in her last three games, finishing a feed from Ana Tittmann (Salisbury, Conn./Housatonic Valley Regional) 4:09 into the third to cut the lead down to two.

That would unfortunately be as close as Manhattanville would get, as three more Utica goals closed out the day. Brown completed her hat trick just 11 seconds after Carr's goal before Nicole Flak and Santullo added the last two goals of the day to end the game.

After last night's fairly clean contest with just five penalties assessed, the officiating crew had their work cut out for them on Saturday with 19 penalties called. All the trips to the sin bin resulted in eight power plays for each team, with the Valiants going 0-for-8 with five shots on their opportunities. Utica, meanwhile, was 2-for-8 with 10 shots. Franny Gerardi (Yonkers, N.Y./Selects Academy) made 28 saves in the loss, falling to 7-5-1 on the season with a 2.76 goals against average. Manhattanville held a 34-32 advantage in the faceoff department, with Miller winning a team-high 21 draws.

Up Next
The Valiants will be in Nazareth next weekend for a two-game series against the Golden Flyers starting on Friday at 7 p.m.

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