AUBURN — There was no question Leavitt/Edward Little/Poland had a sizable advantage against St. Dominic Academy on Saturday. 

All one had to do was glance at both benches during the course of the game to realize that. 

With six players on the ice for each team, one bench yielded an additional 14 players while the other sat just four. The Red Hornets used that to their advantage, scoring early en route to a 6-1 victory over the Saints at Norway Saving Bank Arena. 

“The girls did a lot of the good things we’ve been working on,” Red Hornets coach Shon Collins said. “I thought in the offensive zone we did some cycling, some give-and-goes. We had the triangle set up well and we knew coming into it they were an undermanned squad with only 10 skaters. The message to the girls was get out there and put the pressure on. We were able to roll three lines right from the beginning, really wear them down.”

The Red Hornets (2-0) set the tone early, dominating puck possession and turning that into two first-period goals. Kylie Bureau opened the scoring at 4:18, taking a pass off the end boards by Haley Frohlich and stuffing it past St. Dom’s goaltender Payton Winslow on her glove side.

Emma Martineau scored her first of two goals in the first period and added her second at 6:02 of the second period as the Red Hornets grabbed a 4-0 lead before the Saints had recorded a shot on Leavitt/EL/Poland goaltender Tori Sanford. On Martineau’s second goal, the senior forward fended off two St. Dom’s defenders at the left circle and beat Winslow five-hole. Martineau assisted on Mariah Vaillancourt’s goal with 14 seconds left in the second to round out a three-point night for the captain. 

“We played well as a team,” Martineau said. “We had a lot of nice passes and we had a little more time so it was good to work on for the bigger games coming up. We wanted to go out hard in the beginning so we could wear them down. We had a lot more girls so it was easy for us to have a lot more energy.” 

Grace McBride opened the four-goal period for the Red Hornets 3:31 in, taking a pass from Kristina Latlippe and finding the back of the net with a shot from the slow. Ally MacKenzie made it 5-0 with 3:30 remaining in the second. 

Trailing by five goals nearing the end of the second period, the Saints (0-2) got on the board as Alexis Kesaris collected her own rebound in front of the Red Hornet net and jammed a puck past Sanford. 

Despite the loss, St. Dom’s coach Paul Gosselin said the team’s improving. 

“The last game we played we had 11 goals scored against us, so our goal was to keep that number down,” Gosselin said. “We’re working on endurance with the small bench. That will come after awhile. We made some changes defensively and I think it helped out. It’s tough playing against 20 girls when you have a bench half that size. We’ve got some grit and they don’t give up.” 

Some of St. Dom’s best scoring chances came in the final two periods as the Saints registered eight shots on goal in the final 30 minutes. They were still heavily outshot, with the Red Hornets firing 42 shots on Winslow, who finished with 36 saves. 

“We were really moving the puck around well,” Collins said. “We were using the points effectively with the triangles we had out there. We had a lot more traffic in front than we’ve had at other times.” 

The Red Hornets have scored 13 goals in their first two contests. 

Copy the Story Link