Oswego State Womens Hockey Sweeps In Dramatic and Dominating Fashion

After suffering their first loss of the season and pulling in a tie, the Oswego State Women's Hockey team looked to get back to their winning ways. This time it was back on home ice against a familiar foe in the Neumann Knights. In each of the last two seasons, Oswego has played Neumann at home in the opening round of the ECAC West Playoffs. So you could say there's a bit of a rivalry starting to brew.

The first meeting of the weekend ended in dramatic fashion, as Oswego was able to skate away with the 2-1 overtime victory. Neumann opened the scoring at the 10:51 mark of the first period, when Lauren Cusack scored her first of the season. That goal would hold up till about the midway point of the 3rd period. Oswego was finally able to break through at the 10:21 mark of the 3rd period, when Megan Hagg scored her 2nd goal of the year, a powerplay goal to tie the game. The game remained deadlocked through the end of regulation and into overtime. Finally at the 4:19 mark of the extra period, Emma Smetaniuk buried the game winner, her first goal of the season, to give Oswego the victory.

Justina Mayr took the loss for Neumann, dropping her record on the year to 0-3-0, while stopping 36 of 38 Oswego shots. Catherine Cote picked up the win for Oswego, improving her record to 2-1-0 on the season, while stopping 33 of 34 Neumann shots. This was the 3rd time in the first five games Oswego had to go to overtime. They tied Potsdam in their last game, with the other overtime game resulting in a 3-2 win against Castelton. Ironically, both overtime wins for Oswego have occurred at home, and Megan Hagg has scored in both games. She scored the OT winner in the first game and scored the tying goal in this game.

Now after the nail biter on Saturday, both teams met again on Sunday, but the result wasn't as dramatic. Oswego dominated the game from start to finish, walking away with a 3-0 victory. Melissa Seamont got the scoring going, scoring her first of the season, a powerplay goal at 12:18 of the 1st. Then Alexa Aramburu scored her first career goal at 17:27 mark of the 1st. Finally, Oswego put the game away at 1:10 of the 2nd period when Melissa Seamont scored her 2nd of the game and season, to ice the victory at 3-0.

Julia Fair took the loss for Neumann, dropping her record to 1-1-0 on the seaosn, as she stopped 9 of the 11 shots she faced in the 1st period. She was replaced in the 2nd by Justina Mayr, who stopped 24 of the 25 shots she faced over the final 2 periods. Catherine Cote picked up the shutout victory for Oswego, improving her recod to 3-1-0 on the season, stopping all 17 shots she faced. For Cote it was her 3rd career shutout, and her performance in both games earned her  ECAC West Goalie Of The Week Honors.

That wasn't the only piece of history made this weekend. Two school records were broken this past weekend, and both by the same player. With her assist Saturday on the Oovertime winner by Smetaniuk, Melissa Seamont earned her 32nd career assist, good for the most in school history. The previous record had been 31 career assists which was held by Jillian Bergeron. Also with her two goal performance in the win on Sunday, Melissa Seamont is now the all time leading scorer in school history with 52 points. The previous record had been 51 points held by Kelly Collins.  So Congratulations are in oreder for Melissa Seamont for setting two new school records!

(Photo provided by Oswego State Athletics)