RJ Craig
Following a two-week hiatus due to the cancellation of the Columbus Classic, the Lady Ice Dawgs traveled to Cumming, Ga. on Friday night to take on the Auburn Tigers at their de facto home rink, The ICE.
Remarkably, despite being on the penalty kill, the visiting Tigers struck first with a goal from defenseman Gabriella Donato. Not even a minute later, Donato followed it up with another short-handed goal assisted by winger Vivian Kennell to double the Tigers’ lead.
The second period did not feature any goals, despite the multitude of penalties committed by players on both teams. Auburn had three power plays but failed to convert on any of them while Georgia had two but could not take advantage.
In the third period, Donato put up an unassisted goal to notch the hat trick and then tacked on another one less than two minutes later for added measure, bringing the Tiger advantage to 4-0.
“I honestly didn’t look at the score but rather listened to what Coach Smith was telling us, to play [the] third period like it’s a new game, just try to win the period, and most importantly to never give up,” junior Sunny Yang said.
And never give up the Dawgs did.
Only fifteen seconds following the Donato goal, freshman Georgia Verheyden started the comeback effort with a goal on the assist by sophomore Paige Oukes. Oukes cut the deficit in half about halfway into the period with an assist from senior forward Cece Pumpelly.
Oukes scored again to bring the Dawgs within one with less than two minutes remaining, but it was too little too late.
Ultimately, the Dawgs lost 4-3, falling short of what would have been their fourth consecutive win against the Tigers dating back to last season.
The Dawgs had a great chance of winning the game (or at the very least, tying the game) had they scored on any of their five power plays, but they could not capitalize on the man advantage.
“Typically with a full roster, we would play our strongest line for [defense] and forwards so we can take advantage of the power play but because we have a few players out for injury, we were very short handed and didn’t have the ability to make these substitutions,” graduate Madison Jennings said.
The Dawgs will try to get healthy as they look to secure their first win of the season at the first-annual Athens Invitational tournament on November 9-10.