Women's Hockey | 2/19/2011 9:10:00 PM

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ROCHESTER, NY – The No. 2 RIT women's hockey team (22-1-2, 15-1-2 ECAC West) clinched at least a share of the 2011 ECAC West Regular Season title, defeating No. 9 Elmira (16-7-2, 12-4-2 ECAC West) 4-1 at the Murray Athletic Center on Saturday evening. RIT tied a program record with its 22nd win and will host the 2011 ECAC West Tournament on March 5-6.

The Tigers scored three times in the third period to break a 1-1 tie.

#Sarah Dagg (St. George, Ontario/Hamilton Hawks)# scored twice for the Tigers, giving her 150 career points. She is just the second player in school history to reach that milestone. Dagg is now three points shy of the school record and has 62 goals and 88 assists in 104 career games.

#Kourtney Kunichika (Fullerton, CA/LA Selects) and Katie Stack (Batavia, NY/Rochester Edge) each tallied a goal and an assist for the Tigers. #Ariane Yokoyama (Van Nuys, CA/LA Selects)# recorded a pair of assists for the Tigers. Stack's goal was the 78th of her career, one shy of the school mark.

The Tigers could end up tied in the ECAC West standings with Plattsburgh. RIT will be the top-seed and host the ECAC West Championship, as they hold the tiebreaker over Plattsburgh.

With the game tied 1-1 in the third period, Kunichika stuffed in a loose puck at the side of the net, after great work by Yokoyama and #Erin Zach (Elmira, Ontario/Cambridge Fury)# deep in the Soaring Eagles zone.

Stack made it 3-1 on the power-play with a nifty tip from the slot off a pass from Yokoyama for her 17th of the year.

Stack stripped an Elmira defenseman in front of the Soaring Eagles net and fed a streaking Dagg for her second goal of the game and 17th of the year to put the game away.

RIT out-shot Elmira, 36-24. The Tigers out-shot Elmira, 27-9 after the first period. RIT was 1-for-4 with the man-advantage, while Elmira was 1-for-6.

#Carley King (Tinley Park, IL)# made 23 saves to improve to 8-0-0 on the season. Maguire stopped 32 shots for Elmira.
RIT Head Coach Scott McDonald thought his big players stepped up when it mattered.

“First of all, congratulations to the girls for clinching home ice for the ECAC West Playoffs,” said McDonald. “As the game went on we got better and better and had a number of players step up, led by Sarah Dagg (St. George, Ontario/Hamilton Hawks), as usual. It just goes to show you how tough our league is in that we went down to the wire to clinch home ice, despite having just one loss.”

Elmira scored the game's only goal of the first period, on a disputed power-play goal by Tori Charron 7:48 into the contest. Madison Johnston took a shot from the point that King stopped. The rebound came to Charron, as she barreled into King, knocking the goaltender out of the way for the easy goal.

The Tigers had a handful of good chances, the best coming when Dagg had a rebound in front stopped. #Ellesha Fortuna (Burlington, Ontario/Burlington Barracudas)# had a point-blank chance from in close that was stopped.

King made a great save on Caitlin Metcalf in the final minute of the period to keep it 1-0 Soaring Eagles.

The Tigers controlled play in the second period, out-shooting Elmira, 11-4, while getting the only goal of the period.

Zach was stopped on a breakaway by Maguire 1:40 into the second period.

Dagg tied the game 5:12 into the period, as she collected a feed from #Kolbee McCrea (Wawa, Ontario/Burlington Barracudas) in the slot and whistled a shot over the shoulder of Maguire for her 16th tally of the season. (Pittsburgh, PA/Mountour)Melissa Bromley (Aurora, Ontario/Aurora Panthers)# also assisted on the goal.

Maguire single-handedly kept the game tied in the period, making a huge glove save on #Ariane Yokoyama (Van Nuys, CA/LA Selects)# in tight, then a huge save on #Kim Schlattman (Stratford, Ontario/Cambridge Fury)# with 1:40 left in the period.

Elmira leads the all-time series between the two schools, 8-4-2. The Tigers took both meetings this season, also winning 3-1 on Feb. 4.

RIT allowed less than two goals in a game for the 20th time this season. The have allowed just 22 goals in 25 games and have out-scored foes 131-22.

The Tigers will host the 2011 ECAC West Tournament and play the lowest remaining seed after first round play concludes on Feb. 26. The ECAC West Tournament will be March 5-6 at Ritter Arena.