SU Women’s Ice Hockey Just Faced a Brick Wall
By John Dales
Citrus TV Women’s Ice Hockey Beat Reporter
Sometimes in sports, you just have to tip your cap to your opponent after they get the best of you. A select few athletes can perform at such a high level that they are unbeatable when at peak performance. Lebron James, Tom Brady, and Tiger Woods are a few names that come to mind in professional sports. After this past weekend, maybe Terra Lanteigne deserves to be mentioned with some of those names. Who is Terra Lanteigne you may ask? She’s the starting goalie on RIT (9-16-3, 2-11-1 College Hockey America), and had herself an unbelievable weekend set against Syracuse (10-16-2, 8-4-2 College Hockey America).
On Friday night, the Orange and Tigers faced off at Tennity Ice Pavilion in a game that ended with a Syracuse victory. Lanteigne — who received the honor of CHA goalie of the week on Monday — faced an ungodly amount of shots on goal from SU attackers in this one. In the 1st period, the Orange unleashed 23 shots on goal. Lanteigne turned every single one of them away. The senior goalie from Nova Scotia was not quite as lucky in the 2nd period though. Despite a continued strong effort, her teammates continued to allow Syracuse to get good chances, and the Orange finally broke through. SU’s Anonda Hoppner and Brynn Koocher slipped a couple of pucks past Lanteigne for a 2-0 lead. Even so, Lanteigne still had 16 saves in that period. The 3rd period came and went with one goal by each team, and a 3-1 victory for Syracuse was the result.
However, Terra Lanteigne was undoubtedly the star of the game. All in all, the Tigers goalie finished with 56 saves on the day while facing 59 shots on goal. Those numbers are unheard of in the sport of hockey, especially at the collegiate level. To put things in perspective, RIT finished Friday night’s game with 24 shots on goal (one more than Syracuse had in just the 1st period).
Each team had several hours to recharge their batteries before the two squads faced off again, this time in Rochester on Saturday night. It was a different day, a different arena, but the same Terra Lanteigne in net for the Tigers. In fact, she somehow found a way to top her efforts from the night before. RIT was more aggressive offensively this time around, but somehow so was Syracuse. The game ended in a 2-2 overtime tie, but the final score does not tell nearly the full story.
SU’s Allison Small gave up two goals off 29 shots on goal. Lanteigne gave up the same while facing a staggering 63 shots on goal. That is not a typo. SU put up 63 shots on goal and only scored twice. Lanteigne was unconscious in net this weekend, turning away 117 of the 122 shots on goal that came hurtling her way, good enough for a save percentage of 0.959.
There are plenty of things the Orange coaching staff and players can be upset about when looking back on the weekend. They missed opportunities on certain power plays, played a bit too conservatively late on Friday night and made some sloppy passes. SU didn’t even lose either of the games, but Saturday’s tie certainly felt like a loss. The Orange just ran into a goalie that was on a hot streak this weekend. The mantra should be shake it off and move on to the next game. On the other side, I think it’s safe to say Terra Lanteigne will remember how she played this weekend for a while.
jdales@syr.edu | @JohnDales_
