Castleton’s goalie Jess Cameron stopped 57 of the 59 shots she faced as Oswego State fell to the Castleton State College Spartan’s Saturday 3-2 at the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena.
The Lakers got their starting senior goalie back today as Tori Trovato returned to the lineup. The Lakers limited the Spartans to 19 shots but sometimes those games are hardest for goalies because they can go numerous minutes without facing any action. Trovato may have been a victim of that today letting in three goals on 19 shots.
“Tori is a veteran. She’s very good at being mentally focused,” Coach Diane Dillon said. “As a senior she’s been through that [slow games], yeah you’re always worried about that, but I knew Tori could handle that no problem.”
The Lakers enter the loss column in their opening weekend in an overall disappointing game. They failed on multiple opportunities and on the power play. They were 1-8 with the man advantage and their lone goal came on a set play off a face-off late in the game from Alexa Aramburu.
“One power play goal, we need more than that,” Dillon said. “We made opportunities, we have to bury those. That’s an opportunity lost, when a team takes to the box that much we need some help. At the same time we controlled the puck a lot, we moved some things around. We just need to be able to vary our decisions a bit and show them some more looks. We’ll be ready for next week.”
Both games this weekend were very chippy. The games were physical and the Lakers, for the most part, stayed away from that but tonight they seemed totally outmatched with the physical play of the Spartans. Alli Ullrich left the game then returned as she was shaken up in the third.
“That’s women’s hockey,” Dillon said. “It’s become a bigger, stronger, faster game. Particularly our league, the ECAC West, is usually more physical than others. Do we have to step up and be a little tougher? Yeah. You see we have some big bodies but we have a lot of kids that just need to be able to fight through checks.”
The Lakers were dominated by the pair of Taylor Steadman and Brianna Keats all night. Steadman potted two goals and Keats scored a goal and tallied two assists. While the Lakers knew these were two key players the Lakers didn’t focus too much on them and game plan for them specifically and that may be something the Lakers regret.
“We were more concerned, at this point of the season, with our play,” Dillon said “Yeah, we wanted to keep an eye on Steadmam, she did some damage against us last year, she’s a very talented young lady. So is Keats.”
Tonight’s loss was a reapeat of the Barrie Junior Sharks game woes. The Lakers couldn’t capitalize on chances and that is why they lost. They will continue to create chances but need to finish and it needs to change soon.
“We need to start burying some shots,” Dillon said. “We are getting all kinds of opportunities but how many of them are right in the goalie? [We need to] just make sure we are shooting to score instead of just putting the puck on net.”
The Lakers ended the first weekend of regular season non-conference games with a win and a loss although they should be 2-0. The Lakers play a pair of road games next weekend against conference rivals, SUNY Cortland. The Red Dragons are 1-1, as well. They beat New England College and lost to Castleton State College, the same results as Oswego State. This should be a big matchup as ECAC West play gets underway. The Lakers play Nov. 7 and 8 at 2 p.m. on the road in Cortland.
