Women’s Ice Hockey: Headland’s Nets Hat Trick, Clark Stops 42 as Cadets Take Down Panthers for the First Time Since 2017

MIDDLEBURY, Vt.- In their final road contest of the regular season, the tenth ranked Norwich Women’s Ice Hockey team journeyed through the green mountains to visit seventh ranked Middlebury.

Within the first couple of minutes, the Cadets held the early edge putting Panther netminder Sophia Will to the test. After that early Norwich flurry was weathered, Middlebury began to press the attack with Leocadia Clark (Stowe, Vt.) making four stops in a twenty second span.

The pressure by the Panthers would lead to the first powerplay of the game. Early in the man advantage, Aimee Headland (Nottingham, U.K.) pressed the puck carrier at the blueline, poked it loose and used her foot speed to generate a breakaway. Headland’s beat Will to her glove side to break the ice six minutes in. For the rest of the powerplay, and soon after, Middlebury pressed for the tie, but Clark was equal to the task.

A little more than midway through the period, after Clark stopped another Panther chance, Melianne Reynolds (Sherbrooke Que.) gathered the puck in the defensive zone from Lauren Tuzik (Frankfort, Ill.) and sent the puck into the neutral zone as a stretch pass. The puck evaded the Panther defender in the neutral zone and found Taylor Girouard (Burlington, Mass.) for another breakaway goal to extend the Cadet lead despite Middlebury holding a decided territorial advantage. The deficit did not deter Middlebury, as their decided advantage eventually led to the Panthers cutting Norwich’s lead in half before the intermission where they held a 19-5 shot advantage.

Early in…