With 2:07 left on the game clock and her team skating with an empty net, Rochester Institute of Technology’s Kristina Moss’s shot left her stick just above the right faceoff circle. The puck flew through the crowd of her teammates and SU defensemen, thrashing around in front of Kallie Billadeau’s goal and over her right shoulder, lasering toward the corner of the net.

The Tigers’ traveling fans standing atop the near bleachers leaned forward, ready to celebrate. Instead, a loud clank, groans and more desperate dicing of skates filled Tennity Ice Pavilion. The Orange held on for a 2-1 win that moves SU within a point of the College Hockey America conference summit. The RIT fans sang “Happy Birthday,” taunting the “gift” of a deflection SU so gladly accepted.

“I was like ‘Oh s***, I just got really lucky,” Billadeau said.

The final two-plus minutes were a chaotic testament to a game in which the Orange (18-11-1, 12-3-1 CHA) proved its quality, but lost its cool under fire from chippy and intentional RIT penalties, both called and uncalled. The early lead and control from Akane Hosoyamada’s well-crafted opener was muddied and lost, as the contest slipped in and out of broken end-to-end play and trips to the penalty box for both teams. Though the Orange attack created better and more frequent chances, when needed, the defense threw itself in front of shots, preserving the narrow win.

But there was no foreshadowing the nervy win. SU won the opening faceoff and skated like a team fresh and peaking at the perfect time in the season. Danielle Leslie and Hosoyamada passed back and forth around the perimeter, setting up SU’s offense. Leslie skated off to the left, just beneath the blue line and squared the puck over to Hosoyamada at the point. She hesitated, stepped to her right and let loose a slow, placed shot that snuck inside the left post of RIT’s goal.

SU looked set to cruise as RIT could hardly skate out of its own half in response.

“It was awesome,” senior forward Jacquie Greco said. “There’s nothing better than having all the energy out on the ice in your favor so it was really awesome having the momentum the first period.”

Outshot 13-4 to start, RIT turned to an uglier brand of hockey. Just 3:30 into the game, Tenecia Hiller pounced on SU defender Nicole Renault, lying on the ice. Hiller punched Renault’s torso twice before getting up, skating off and dragging her stick along Renault’s collar.

There was more to come, as the second period lit up the scoreboard with penalties. But SU’s offense was still ticking at a pace the Tigers could not keep up with, and the game spun out of control. When Holly Carrie-Mattimoe slipped a drop-off pass breaking down the right wing to a surging Julie Knerr, RIT goalkeeper Ali Binnington skated 15 feet out of her crease. Knerr tried to duck past Binnington, but ran into her left shoulder instead, sending Binnington three feet in the air, perpendicular to the ice.

Knerr was whistled for charging. After the play, when her momentum took her into the boards behind the goal, Hiller, Moss and Melissa Bromley kicked and punched Knerr as she lay on the ice.

“That’s their M.O., that’s the way they play,” head coach Paul Flanagan said. “We know it. That’s the fourth time we’ve played them.”

The Orange couldn’t punish RIT on any of the five power plays, but more importantly, it limited the Tigers to its lone power-play goal. Carrie-Mattimoe, Shiann Darkangelo and their teammates jumped in front of shots all night, Carrie-Mattimoe doing so crucially on a Danielle Read attempt in the final minute as RIT scrambled together its longest, most threatening possession, skating six on five.

The game fell badly from the smooth passing grace with which it opened, but at 9:10 p.m. Saturday night, both teams resigned to their locker rooms. The ice was empty and hadn’t yet been cleaned, and it still showed the skated scars and small mounds of grinded ice from the game’s conclusion.

And tellingly, in a valley of finely ground ice chips and skate marks, the puck sat behind Billadeau’s goal. Not in it.

“We’re the team that’s trying to get first place, not them. They’re just trying to get points,” Greco said. “That’s the difference between us, we were trying to get first place out there.”

Published on February 11, 2013 at 12:24 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_