UTICA, NY – The Utica College women's hockey team will start its nineteenth season this Friday as they host Morrisville State College in its first game of the season at the Adirondack Bank Center at the Utica Memorial Auditorium. The puck is slated to drop at 2:30 p.m.
FOLLOW ALONG: Live video and stats for the game will be available at portal.stretchinternet.com/utica/. Sports Information Assistant Ray Biggs '13 is back for a ninth season with the Pioneers as the team's primary play-by-play announcer, with Utica College student David J. Cooney on color commentary on Friday. Home games, along with road contests at Elmira and Nazareth, can be viewed via the free Empire 8 Conference app available for Roku, AppleTV, and Amazon Fire devices.
HOME TEAM ADVANTAGE: The Pioneers will be home for fourteen games this season. Admission for all home games is free. Utica was 6-3-1 when playing at home last season.
SCHEDULING NOTES: Utica will participate in 25 games this season, with a particularly tough stretch to finish off the season that includes games with Nazareth, Elmira, Oswego, and William Smith. The Pioneers will match up against defending UCHC Champion Elmira College twice this year, a team Utica has accumulated five wins over in the course of 18 years. Elmira was an NCAA quarterfinalist last season before their year ended at the hands of Adrian. The Pioneers will see the top two teams from the UCHC Preseason poll in back-to-back home games on November 22nd and 23rd as they host William Smith and Elmira. Non-conference matchups with Middlebury and Morrisville will be exciting as both teams reached the NCAA Quarterfinals a season ago, and the Pioneers will meet national semifinalist Adrian for two games in January.
IN THE PRESEASON POLL: Utica was picked to finish fifth in the United Collegiate Hockey Conference in the annual UCHC Women's Coaches' poll released last week. The Pioneers were one of five teams to receive over 100 points in the voting. Elmira topped the poll for a third straight year, followed by William Smith in second.
PRESEASON WATCH LIST: In addition to the preseason poll, forwards Georgiana Santullo (Woburn, MA/Boston Shamrocks/Woburn High School) and Lexi Stanisewski (Lawrence, MA/Boston Shamrocks), and defender Becky Brown were named to the UCHC Preseason Watch List. The player watch list is an annual preseason honor roll of players expected to make an impact on their teams, and on the conference picture.
THE DEPARTED: The Pioneers graduated six seniors from last year's squad including Colby Begis (Little Elm, TX/Dallas Stars), Kayla Dion (Colchester, VT/Boston Shamrocks), Taylor Dion (Colchester, VT/Boston Shamrocks), Elizabeth Dohner (Highlands Ranch, CO/Colorado Selects), Noelle Capriglione (New Milford, CT/New Milford), and Danielle Haasbeek (Grand Forks, ND/Balmoral Hall).
THE NEWCOMERS: The Pioneers are excited to welcome some new faces for the 2019-2020 season. Freshmen Abby Lillis (West Seneca, NY/Buffalo Bisons), Erica Sloan (Potsdam, NY/St. Lawrence Steel), Ava Suda (Cheektowaga, NY/Buffalo Bisons), Hannah Beckman (North Plainfield, NJ/Rice Prep), Holly Silva (Boston, MA/Worcester Academy), Carolyn Whitney (Raleigh, NC/Milbrook School), Morgan Leib (Farmington Hills, MI/Little Caesars), Maya Bennett (Belleville, ON/West Northumberland) and Maggie Rylott (Cobourg, Ontario/West Northumberland) will all look to make an impact this season.
LAST SEASON: Utica finished the season off 16-9-1 and a conference record of 11-6-1 last year, which was enough to secure them a spot in the playoffs for the 17th time in school history. They fell short to Manhattanville College in the UCHC Tournament by a final of 3-2. Ricki Haab (Stowe, VT/Stowe) and Elizabeth Dohner (Highlands Ranch, CO/Colorado Selects) scored the goals in the playoff defeat.
ALL CONFERENCE PERFORMERS: Utica had three All-Conference honorable mention picks last season. Lexi Stanisewski (Lawrence, MA/Boston Shamrocks) made the cut at forward, and graduated seniors Kayla Dion (Colchester, VT/Boston Shamrocks) and Danielle Haasbeek (Grand Forks, ND/Balmoral Hall) made the cut on defense.
TEAM STATS: Dohner led the Pioneer offense last season with 13 goals, 13 assists and 26 points for her senior season. Stanisewski led the team in assists with 18, also netting eight goals herself. Santullo had an 11 goal, 12 assist season as a rookie last season and also had three power play goals. 16 Pioneers recorded at least one goal in the 2018-2019 season while 20 Pioneers recorded at least one assist.
THERE AND BACK AGAIN: After logging a significant portion of her career at forward, Rebecca Brown (Steamboat Springs, CO/Norwich University) will move back to her natural position at defense this season. Brown has totaled 43 points in two seasons with the team after transferring in from Norwich University. While at Norwich, she played in ten games on defense as a freshman for a team that made the NCAA semifinals.
HOW SWEET IT IS: Senior forward Olivia Hirschy (Fort Wayne, IN/Culver Academies) is Utica's active leader in career goals with 27. She is also the team's active leader in career games played with a total of 67.
GOALIE GAB: Bria Reilly (Hamden, CT/Brewster Academy) led the Pioneers in goal starting in 17 games for Utica. She had 354 saves for the year and averaged 1.64 goals against for the season. Reilly had a .924 save percentage.
SENIOR MOMENT: Utica will have five seniors on this year's roster. Goaltender Bria Reilly (Hamden, CT/Brewster Academy), defenders Kyra Borsoi (Brossard, Quebec/Holderness) and Rebecca Brown (Steamboat Springs, CO/Norwich University), and forwards Olivia Hirschy (Fort Wayne, IN/Culver Academies) and Ricki Haab (Stowe, VT/Stowe) comprise this year's Senior class. Reilly, Borsoi, Haab and Hirschy have been with the Pioneers for the last three years and have won 48 games in that time.
BETTER AS THEY GO ALONG: Utica outscored its opponents by a total of 21 goals in the first two periods combined last season, and by a total of 22 in the third period across the 26 games they played last year.
ON SPECIAL TEAMS: The Utica power play finished 15-of-91 last season, good for a percentage of 16.5 percent. The penalty killing unit killed off 86 penalties in 102 chances for a success rate of 84.3 percent.
SCOUTING MORRISVILLE: Morrisville is coming off an impressive 16-9-2 season and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. They are currently 0-2-1 to start the season. Defender Chyne Kennedy has a goal and three assists to lead the Mustangs in points with four. Mackenzie Lombardi is second on the team with two goals, an assist and three points. Last season, she recorded 12 goals, 15 assists and 27 points for the year. Morrisville is starting freshman Adriana Harman in goal. She has recorded 48 saves on 57 shots this season and has a goals against average of 2.94.
WELCOME BACK: Morrisville is coached by UC Women's Hockey alumna Melissa Lomanto. Lomanto was the program's first captain back in the 2001-02 season, and went on to serve as an assistant coach under Dave Clausen before coaching stints at Adrian, Canton, and Morrisville. She had 85 points in 102 career games played with the Pioneers.
SERIES HISTORY: Utica has faced Morrisville six times in school history. The Pioneers have won four of the six games.
LOOKING AHEAD: The Pioneers will hit the road to Rochester to face Nazareth College in a UCHC matchup on Tuesday. The game is the start of a three-game road trip. Puck is set to drop at 7 p.m.
