Bobcats celebrate senior day with win

Bobcats celebrate senior day with win

By: Taylor Massey QBSN Staff Writer

The Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey team (17-14-2, 12-8-2 ECAC) celebrated senior day with a 5-1 win over RPI (9-21-4, 6-14-2) in its final regular season game. Three different players scored in the ECAC match-up, including a hat trick by Kelly Babstock (Mississauga, Ontario).

RPI and Quinnipiac appeared to match up evenly in an uneventful first period, but halfway through the second frame the Bobcats lit up. Breann Frykas (East St. Paul, Manitoba) was first on the board with a power-play goal six minutes into the period. Frykas caught the rebound off a shot by Regan Boulton (Brandon, Manitoba) and flicked it into the net past RPI goalie Brianna Piper.

Next Babstock came through with her first of three goals for the night on another power-play goal. Babstock was planted in front of the net at the right time to send in a rebound from a shot by Frykas. Minutes later she broke away for an unassisted goal. Babstock crossed in front of the goal and sent a quick shot over Piper’s shoulder to make it 3-0 at the end of the second.

RPI grabbed its first and only goal of the night with just over five minutes left in the game. Toni Sanders managed to get the puck past Victoria Vigilanti (Woodbridge, Ontario) with an assist by Eleeza Cox.

Soon after, Babstock achieved her third goal on an empty net to complete her hat trick. Head coach Rick Seeley was happy to see Babstock back in her groove.

“That’s her bread and butter around the net,” said Seeley.  “Her hands are so quick and to pick-up pucks and then create that space and make the goals look easy, that’s what she’s great at.”

The Bobcats’ final goal came off the stick of senior Bethany Dymarczyk (Hamden, Conn.). Dymarczyk scored a short-handed goal on an empty net, but it held a certain sentimental value that only she knew.

“That was my first goal here at home ice and then for my last goal to be that exact same just kind of means a lot more to me than most people would think,” said Dymarczyk.

While Dymarczyk cherished personal moments in the victory, Seeley was looking forward with confidence.

 “I think we accomplished what we needed to accomplish. We needed to come out of this weekend feeling good about how we were playing.”

When all is said and done, the Bobcats will be losing six seniors to graduation.

 Quinnipiac ends the season with the sixth seed in the ECAC and will hit the road to take on Clarkson in the first round of playoffs starting Feb. 24.