ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The RIT women's hockey team returns to College Hockey America play against Mercyhurst with a pair of weekend contests at the Gene Polisseni Center, Friday, Nov. 19 at 2 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 20 at 1 p.m.
FOLLOW LIVE
All home games and select College Hockey America road contests this season will be streamed on
Stretch Internet. Live statistics for all games can be found at RITathletics.com while in-game updates can be found on Twitter by following @RITWHKY.
LAST TIME OUT
RIT enters this weekend's Mercyhurst series after a pair of non-conference road games against No. 3 Minnesota last weekend. The Tigers fell 10-0 (Nov. 12) in the first game before dropping, 7-1, in the weekend finale. Junior forward
Hana Solinger scored her first goal of the season in the latter contest.
WHO'S NO. 1
RIT remains No. 1 in NCAA team saves with 550.
WHO'S NO. 2
Freshman goaltender
Sarah Coe is second in NCAA saves with 406.
TAYLOR-MADE
Senior defender
Taylor Sims is No. 2 in blocks in the NCAA with 40, while junior goaltender
Taylor Liotta has the top single game save total in the NCAA this season with 65, after last Saturday's (Nov. 13) road contest at No. 3 Minnesota.
NATION'S TOP-20
Joining Sims in blocks in the nation's top-15 are sophomore defender
Mia Tsilemos at No. 8 with 29, and freshman defender
Kyla Bear at No. 15 with 25. Sophomore forward
Lindsay Maloney is tied for 12th nationally in faceoff wins with 137, while senior forward
Abby Davies is No. 19 with 126 faceoff wins. The latter pair's totals rank second and fourth in the CHA with last week's 41 team faceoff wins against No. 3 Minnesota (Nov. 12) being the most in a CHA game this season.
BLOCKING WALL
The Tigers set a season single-game high with 28 blocks in the first game (Nov. 12) of last weekend's series against No. 3 Minnesota. RIT is the only team nationally to have three block leaders in the top-15 with Sims, Tsilemos and
Kyla Bear. The Tigers have an additional trio of blockers with 20 or more blocks on the season in Davies (22), freshman forward
Jessie Burks (21) and freshman defender
Bailey Kehl (20).
TIGER SCORING LEADERS
Maloney (3g, 3a) leads the team in scoring, while sophomore forward
Emma Roland leads the team with four goals and Kehl leads the team with four assists.
ABOUT THE LAKERS
Mercyhurst and Syracuse are tied atop the CHA standings with six points with each having 3-0-1 conference records. The Lakers are 6-4-2 overall after going 1-0-1 last weekend against St. Lawrence with a 3-2 win (Nov. 12) and a 1-1 tie (Nov. 13). RIT and Mercyhurst met in each team's season opener in a non-conference game on Sept. 19 with Mercyhurst rallying for a 6-3 win after the Tigers built an early 2-0 lead on goals from Roland and Maloney. Freshman forward
Megan McCormick got the Tigers within a pair at 5-3 with the team's first power-play goal of the season.
RIT VS. MERCYHURST – HISTORY
Friday's Tigers and Lakers matchup will mark the 40th meeting between the two teams with RIT trailing the series (6-33) dating back to Sept. 28, 2012. RIT's last win came on Jan. 6, 2021, after a 1-0 shutout with Solinger netting the game's only goal in the final minute of the second period from Sims and Davies. Liotta made 42 stops in the shutout win.
