Saints Go Marching On

St. Lawrence advances to Frozen Four with yet another upset

March 10, 2007

By Elliot Olshansky

CSTV.com


	ELLIOT OLSHANSKY Elliot is CSTV.com's hockey editor and runs his Rink Rat hockey blog on CSTV.com. E-mail here!

DURHAM, N.H. - St. Lawrence University is named for the St. Lawrence River, and not Saint Lawrence of Rome, but the latter would certainly be a fine namesake for a university, being the patron saint of students, libraries, and archives.

On Saturday, however, it was also appropriate that Saint Lawrence is the patron saint of cooks, as the No. 5 Saints were cooking with gas on Saturday afternoon. The Saints rolled into the Whittemore Center and cruised past No. 4 New Hampshire, advancing to the Women's Frozen Four with a 6-2 win over the Wildcats.

"I think it was a great game, obviously, from our kids today, from start to finish," said SLU head coach Paul Flanagan. "You could just see the determination. It helped that we got on the board first, and then our kids really rallied around that. Getting a lead against a team like this in their rink, I think, was really important. You could feel it on our bench, that any experience that we might have had, any anxiety, it kind of alleviated that, and I think our kids settled down."

It was quite the turnaround from St. Lawrence's last outing, a 7-3 loss to No. 3 Dartmouth last Sunday in the ECACHL championship game, but that shouldn't come as much of a surprise. The Saints advanced to their fourth straight Women's Frozen Four, and their fifth overall, but in the seven-year history of the NCAA Tournament, they've never come into the tournament off of a win.

"We plan it that way," Flanagan joked. "The other team, they watch the tape, and think, `Ah, we can beat them.' It's quite a ploy."

More seriously, Flanagan said, "We got on the bus last Sunday leaving Dartmouth pretty disappointed, but in the back of our minds, a chance to play another day, a chance to redeem ourselves. I think that's what kept us going all week. You've got a chance to redeem yourself for what happened last week. We just talked in the locker room and said, `We blew an opportunity to win a championship in our league, but there's another one up for grabs.' This team has been great in terms of rallying around something like that."

To sophomore forward Carson Duggan, though, the rallying point was something much simpler than redemption.

"I think it's knowing you have an opportunity to play one more game," Duggan said. "A lot of other teams, they might lose that game and they're done. You just have to have the mentality that you're privileged to be playing another game.

The Saints have had the privilege to play several games more than observers might have expected over the years. St. Lawrence has a history of upsets in NCAA tournament play - including the first upset in tournament history (a 3-1 win over No. 1 seed Dartmouth in the 2001 Frozen Four) and the first upset in tournament quarterfinal history (a 3-2 overtime win over No. 2 seed Minnesota Duluth in 2005). According to Flanagan, playing at a small school (enrollment: 2,130) in the small town of Canton, N.Y., lends itself well to fostering a scrappy, underdog mentality.

"We don't talk about it," Flanagan said, "but sometimes, I think being a small school, and always being up against a big one - last year it was Wisconsin, `how could little St. Lawrence possibly beat Wisconsin?' - I think our kids kind of feed off of that. We don't worry about it, but I think it's out there a little bit. I think today, the fact that we were playing in their rink - it wasn't any kind of a hostile environment - maybe we didn't have as much pressure on us.

"I remember last year, playing Duluth [at home in the NCAA quarterfinals], there's a lot pressure stepping out on that ice in your own rink with the expectation you've got to win. It tightens you up a little bit. So maybe, being a slight underdog, 4 vs. 5, that might have loosened us up just a little bit. You don't have as much pressure."

Even in pressure situations, though, the Saints thrived. With time running out in the first period, Duggan, Marianna Locke and Chelsea Grills were nearing the end of their shift for the Saints, working against New Hampshire's line of Jennifer Hitchcock, Leah Craig and Sadie Wright-Ward, with 326 career points between them in three seasons. Facing tough pressure from the Wildcats' offense, Grills blocked a shot from the point, beat everyone to the puck, and skated the length of the ice for a breakaway goal at 19:57 of the period, giving St. Lawrence a 3-1 lead.

"We got caught off guard there in the defensive zone," Grills said. "They were working the puck off pretty well, and then it went to the point. I positioned myself in front of the shot and it went off my shinpad, and then all I saw was net, and I just kept going, and it went in for me."

"They were a little tired defensively," Flanagan said, "and then for [Grills] to be able to gut it out when she didn't have anything left in the tank, to go the length of the ice and bury that one makes it even more impressive. That's what desire is all about. That's the kind of goal that, in a game like this, you just can't praise it enough."

In addition to being an impressive effort, Grills' goal was the kind of score that can have a tremendous impact on a game, and Flanagan felt that was the case against the Wildcats.

"Getting that third one, going into the intermission with a two-goal cushion just gives you so much confidence," Flanagan said. "We got to get in there and just get a chance to recover a little bit physically, because it is tough on our kids, being on the big ice. We talked about the fact that this should help our confidence. It's early, but a little bit deflating for them, maybe they're questioning themselves a little bit."

Now, the Saints will go home to Canton and prepare for next week's Frozen Four, which will be played at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, N.Y. With St. Lawrence serving as the host institution for the event, getting to play on the storied ice sheet of the Olympic Center is especially sweet for the Saints.

"It was in the back of our minds today," Grills said, "but I think we just stayed as a team, and we came out the full 60 minutes and never gave up. We're hosting there, and we want to be there, and now we are, and we're really excited about it, and it should be a fun experience for us."

It should also be a challenge for the Saints, who haven't won a Frozen Four semifinal since beating Dartmouth in 2001, but certainly not an insurmountable one. After all, for the Saints, the fun and excitement rarely end when they're supposed to.