ERIE, PA – The RIT women's hockey team (13-13-3, 8-5-2 CHA) couldn't overcome an aggressive Mercyhurst (18-7-3, 11-3-1 CHA) offensive performance, falling to the Lakers 5-1 on Friday night from the Mercyhurst Ice Center.
 
Katie Hubert (Burlington, Ontario/Burlington Barracudas) scored the Tigers lone goal early in the third period, as Lindsay Grigg (Oakville, Ontario/Oakville Hornets) and Carly Payerl (Kitchener, Ontario/Resurrection Catholic) grabbed assists on the play. For Hubert it was her first goal of the 2013-14 season and the fifth of her career.
 
Mercyhurst got on the board first with a goal from Jenna Dingeldein just seven minutes into the game.  From there Christie Cicero, Christine Bestland, Emily Janiga and J'nai Mahadeo added goals for the Lakers in the win.
 
In net for the Tigers was Jetta Rackleff (Bend, OR/Summit) who earned the start as she made 18 saves on the evening. Amanda Makela started in goal for Mercyhurst and made 17 saves to pick up the win.
 
RIT was outshot just 23-18 in the loss, but the power play unit struggled going 0-for-6, while allowing a shorthanded goal.
 
The Tigers came played tough defensively out of the gate as they were able to stop some good scoring chances by Mercyhurst early on and create some of their own. With 12:55 to go in the period, the Lakers broke through on a goal by Dingeldein to jump out to the quick 1-0 lead.
 
Mercyhurst would never look back, adding a short-handed goal by Cicero with just over four minutes remaining in the period, and take a 2-0 lead into the break.
 
Despite the two first period goals by Mercyhurst, the RIT defense allowed just eight shots on goal for the entire first 20 minutes.
 
In the second it was all Lakers, who took advantage of their only power play chance of the night by netting another goal, courtesy of Bestland just minutes in. Later on Janiga and Mahadeo would each add a goal to give them a 5-0 lead after two.
 
The Tigers showed some life in the third as Hubert would score a goal just 7:08 into the period, but it was too little too late for RIT who couldn't overcome the five goal deficit.
 
RIT is now 1-6-0 all-time against the Lakers, and 1-13-0 against ranked opponents in the Division I era.
 
The Tigers and Lakers are back in action tomorrow at the Mercyhurst Ice Center, where the two teams will close out their regular season series, with the puck set to drop at 2 p.m. With the CHA tournament quickly approaching, Mercyhurst sits atop the standings, five points ahead of third place RIT.