PROVIDENCE, RI – The RIT women's hockey team (4-16-1) opened up play in the 2016 calendar year by falling to host Providence College (7-13-0) by a score of 5-1 at Schneider Arena on Friday afternoon.
 
The Friars scored a goal in the opening period, one in the second, and three in the third, bombarding RIT with 48 shots on goal. Overall, Providence out-shot RIT, 48-13.
 
Kendall Cornine (Kinnelon, NJ/Morristown Beard) scored RIT's lone goal, on an assist from Reagan Rust (Southaven, MS/Moon Area) with 4:15 left in regulation. In goal, Jetta Rackleff (Bend, OR/Summit) was strong despite allowing five goals, stopping 43 shots.
 
Madison Sansone, Brittney Thunstrom, Cassidy MacPherson, Blair Parent, and Kate Friesen scored for Providence. In net, Madison Myers made 12 saves for her sixth win of the season.
 
Providence was 1-for-3 with the man-advantage, while RIT was 0-for-4.
 
"Give credit to Providence for playing a great game today," said Bruce B. Bates Women's Hockey Coach Scott McDonald. "They dominated us in every aspect of the game, especially when it came to loose puck battles and effort."
 
Rackleff was solid in the opening period, stopping 14 shots.
 
Providence scored the lone goal in the opening period, out-shooting RIT, 15-3. Just after a RIT power-play ended, Sansone tallied her ninth goal of the season off a feed from Lexi Romanchuk to make it 1-0 Friars.

Despite Rackleff's best efforts in the second period, Providence would take a 2-0 lead late in the frame on a goal by Thunstrom. The Friars would pepper the RIT net with 21 shots in the third period and get goals in the first five minutes from MacPherson and Parent to make it 4-0.
 
Cornine would eventually get RIT on the board with her third goal of the season with 4:15 left, but that was as close as the Tigers would get.
 
Today marked the meeting between the two schools as Division I members. Providence leads the all-time series, 18-1-0. Before today, the two teams last played on Feb. 4, 1995 at Ritter Arena. The Tigers lone win against Providence came on Jan. 22, 1989, a 4-2 victory at Schneider. The teams were once members of the ECAC in the late 1980s.
 
The two teams conclude their season series on Saturday from Schneider Arena, this time at 1 p.m. After tomorrow, RIT plays its final 12 regular season games against College Hockey America foes.