CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP – After a tough loss last night to Bemidji State, the Colonials had to rebound quickly for an afternoon matchup versus Maine in the consolation game of Battle At The Burgh.
This game would start well for the Colonials, similar to the night prior, as they would open up with the first goal scored by Calli Arnold, her second of the year, to make it 1-0 early on into the first period.
The Maine Black Bears would respond with two unanswered goals to take the lead 2-1 just before the first intermission.
RMU would open the scoring in the second with a goal from Shailynn Snow, her seventh of the year, to tie the score up at two apiece. After the score was tied, Maine would score three unanswered to make the score 5-2 Black Bears.
Maine would add an empty net goal to make the final score 6-2 as the Colonials fell to the Black Bears in the consolation game of Battle At The Burgh.
It was a rough night for the Colonials, which started well with RMU providing the first goal of this consolation game. After that first goal, however, the game seemed to unravel for Robert Morris as the Black Bears scored six of the next seven goals.
Head Coach Logan Bittle shared his thoughts about his team’s fast start and, ultimately, the result.
“We weren’t good enough today, the girls know it, I know they care, they show that. They want it. We need to get in a little bit better shape, I think,” Bittle said. “We’ve got to be better, the girls know it, and we will use this off weekend to do that.”
The Colonials were outshot in this game 53-26, with 28 of those shots coming in the third period for Maine. The Black Bears had a lot of success screening RMU’s goalie, Maggie Hatch. Maine’s goals were scored by creating traffic in front and tipping the puck in.
Coach Bittle spoke on his team’s inability to move the bodies away from Maggie.
“We did not do enough. That was one of the messages during the timeout. We have to pick up sticks and pick up bodies. We made it way too easy for them. For a team like us that is struggling to score, we get a lot of traffic in front of other teams’ nets, and we can’t seem to get sticks on it, but somehow other teams are. We got to be better from our D to our centers and our weak side forward,” Coach Bittle said. “We were not good enough today at all.”
This loss marks six in a row for the Colonials, who are being outscored 23-6. Coach Bittle spoke about what has to happen for this team to put the puck in the back of the net and if the team is close to putting it together.
“It’s all a process. We got to learn from our mistakes and our losses. If we can do that, we will get better,” Bittle said. “Today was a little step back, but again, if we can learn from it and take it into league play here the last of the season. We can look back on this being a turning point for us.”
The Colonials will have this upcoming week off before returning to the ice on Jan. 12 to take on Lindenwood at the Clearview Arena for a 7 p.m.
