Joey Payeur
Katie Sinclair maintained a lack of goals on her part recently wasn’t a reflection of her overall play.
Her ability to find the net, however, provided a kick-start to a much-need sweep for the Rainy River Community College Voyageurs women’s hockey team.
Sinclair’s short-handed breakaway tally opened the scoring and paved the way for a 3-2 win over the Northern Michigan Wildcats in ACHA Division II action Sunday at Bronco Arena in International Falls.
Coupled with a 4-2 triumph Saturday, RRCC (12-3-3 in the West region) widened the gap between itself and Northern Michigan (10-5-2) for second place to five points.
The Voyageurs also are only one back of the league-leading North Dakota State Bison (14-2), who hold two games in hand.
With only two goals in six games since the Christmas break, the Muskie alumnus said she’s been focusing on her all-around game in the absence of lighting the lamp.
“Just because I’m not scoring doesn’t mean I’m not playing well,” declared Sinclair, who beat Wildcats’ goalie Jenna Bales five-hole after leaving two Northern Michigan defenders reading the back of her jersey almost three-quarters of the way down the ice.
“It was a big goal for the team and it showed the Wildcats that we are the better team,” she noted.
“It was good to win both games but we could have done a little better than we did,” Sinclair added.
“They’re not [good enough to be] a fourth-place team based on their capabilities.”
Voyageurs’ head coach Jeff Wickstrom was happy to have Sinclair bulge the twine.
“We need her to have her confidence back because we’re going to need her scoring offence the rest of the way,” he said.
“If we’ve got all four of those Muskie girls clicking, it’s going to be a key factor for us at the national tournament [March 4-8 in York, Pa.],” he stressed.
The other three former black-and-gold stalwarts—forwards Hailey Clendenning, Shelby Tymkin, and Shilo Beck—all made their presence known during the rest of the period.
Clendenning and Micah Cabral set up Connor Coleman, who got two whacks at the puck before stuffing it behind Bales for a 2-0 lead.
Beck then sent a lead pass to Tymkin, who made a sensational saucer pass over a defender’s stick to Cabral, who wasted no time burying the puck high to the stick side on Bales about five minutes later.
Bales was replaced by Brianna Bangle to start the second period—a move the Voyageurs were shocked didn’t happen 20 minutes earlier for the netminder, who stopped all 10 shots she faced the rest of the way Sunday.
“I was extremely surprised they didn’t start [Bangle],” Clendenning said of the netminder, who was phenomenal in a 50-save performance during a 1-0 loss to the Voyageurs in RRCC’s home tournament back in November but then watched Bales play all of Saturday night and then get the start again Sunday.
“Fortunately, we had a good start against [Bales] or it could have been a different outcome.”
Northern Michigan finally caught a break midway through the third when Cabral turned the puck over and hollered in frustration before roaming out of the vicinity of the play.
That led to a Wildcats’ 3-on-1 that quickly became a 2-on-0, with Loren Holfield passing to Macy Schultz for an easy tap-in behind RRCC goalie Shalynn Perry.
A frantic power-play chance for Northern Michigan three minutes later saw Cabral get tangled up in the corner and injure her knee—leaving her struggling to hobble off the ice while the Wildcats kept possession of the puck in what turned into an impromptu 5-on-3 opportunity.
The Wildcats didn’t score there but did turn the game into a thriller when Amanda Crandell beat Perry with 1:20 to go.
But with Bangle on the bench for an extra skater, Northern Michigan couldn’t even get set up in the Voyageurs’ zone.
The near total meltdown in the third mirrored Saturday’s game, in which the Voyageurs led 4-0 after two periods but gave up two goals and several other good chances in the third.
“It’s got be a matter of keeping their focus in the third,” a visibly-annoyed Wickstrom stressed.
“I walked into the dressing room after the game and ask them if they’re tired and they say, ‘No, Coach,’ so we’ve got to start fighting to find that focus,” he added.
“I can only say it to them so many times.”
Wickstrom was impressed with his penalty killers, who killed off all six of Northern Michigan’s power plays on Sunday.
“With only nine skaters, 5-on-4 is actually the one thing we can practice regularly,” he chuckled.
“I think we pressured the Wildcats more than we usually do.”
The Voyageurs get a much-needed bye this weekend before they visit the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Eagles in their final road games of the regular season Feb. 14-15.
RRCC then closes out its regular-season schedule Feb. 21-22 against the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs at Bronco Arena.
The top four ranked teams in the West region—currently North Dakota State, RRCC, Wisconsin-Stout, and Northern Michigan—will advance to the nationals, where they’ll join the four highest-ranked teams from the East region.
