ROCHESTER, NY – Freshman forward Darcy Henderson (Burlington, Ontario/Burlington Barracudas) scored her first collegiate goal with 33 seconds left in regulation to force overtime and help the RIT women's hockey team earn a 2-2 tie against No. 10 Northeastern in front of a program record crowd of 3,011 fans at the Gene Polisseni Center on Saturday afternoon. The game was part of RIT's inaugural One SpiRIT Global Hockey Festival.

With RIT goaltender Brooke Stoddart (Elmvale, Ontario/Elmvale) pulled for the extra attacker, Celeste Brown (Great Falls, MT/National Sports Academy) won a faceoff cleanly in the Northeastern zone and fired a shot on net that Huskies goaltender Chloe Desjardins stopped. Brown's rebound came right to a wide open Henderson in front of the net, who calmly buried the shot into the open side, sending the loud crowd into a frenzy.

Stoddart was excellent in overtime, stopping all five shots she faced, including a tricky deflection in front off a shot from Paige Savage to preserve the tie.

The Tigers trailed 2-0 late in the second period, when Christa Vuglar (Crystal Lake, IL/Chicago Mission) fired a hard slap shot over the shoulder of Desjardins on a 5-on-3 power-play for her first collegiate goal to cut the Northeastern lead to 2-1. Carly Payerl (Kitchener, Ontario/Resurrection Catholic) won a face-off back to Emilee Bulleid (Waterdown, Ontario/Stoney Creek Sabres) at the left point. Bulleid fed Vuglar in the high slot, who then passed the puck to Jess Paton (Woodstock, Ontario/Waterloo K-W Rangers) on the right side. Paton came right back to Vulgar who fired the shot in with 53 seconds left in the period.

Northeastern out-shot RIT, 40-25, including 36-17 after the first period. Stoddart was brilliant for RIT, stopping a career-best 38 shots to earn the tie. She was especially brilliant over the first half of the second period, stopping 15 consecutive shots, including several in spectacular fashion to earn the game's first star.

McKenna Brand and Hayley Masters scored for the Huskies. In net, Desjardins made 23 saves.

RIT was 1-for-5 with the man-advantage, while Northeastern was 1-for-4.

The Tigers were without four key players due to injury, but battled from a 2-0 deficit to earn the tie against the Huskies, ranked No. 10 in the USA Today national poll and receiving votes in the USCHO.com poll.

"Slowly but surely, we are working our kinks out and the next time our fans see us at home, they will see a more confident team," said RIT head coach Scott McDonald. "We did a great job battling back from being down two goals to get a tie against a very good Northeastern team."

After a quickly played first period in which RIT held the Huskies to just four shots, Northeastern turned it up in the second, out-shooting the Tigers, 21-5.

At the 11:19 mark of the second, Masters took a feed from Colleen Murphy in the neutral zone, made a move to the middle and while falling, fired a perfect low wrist shot through the legs of Stoddart to make it 1-0. Less than six minutes later, Brand took advantage of interference from a teammate to take a feed from Denisa Krisova to fire a shot home from the slot and make it 2-0.

Northeastern had won the previous 13 meetings between the two teams before today, all but one when RIT was a Division III squad. Last year, RIT fell on the road at Northeastern, 5-4.

Yesterday, the Tigers fell to fellow Hockey East school New Hampshire by a score of 1-0. Ali Binnington (Oakville, Ontario/Mississauga Chiefs) made 17 saves in defeat, as RIT outshot the Wildcats, 32-18.

The One SpiRIT festivities outside the Polisseni Center featured free food and giveaways for students, live music, tailgating games. RIT's campuses in Kosovo, Dubrovnik, Zagreb and Dubai joined the festivities remotely through interactive technology as they hosted their own celebrations.

After the first period, students seated in the club section performed a "card stunt" - holding up poster-sized cards to spell out "One SpiRIT" and "Go Tigers".

RIT returns to action next weekend, traveling to play the University of Vermont on Saturday, Oct. 18 and Sunday, Oct. 19. Saturday's game is at 4 p.m. and Sunday's starts at 2 p.m.