MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. (October 15, 2022) -- Junior goaltender Suzette Faucher (Middleton, Wis.) did the hard work all night long on Saturday, and sophomore Mikayla Kelley (Eagan, Minn.) made sure it mattered at St. Thomas Ice Arena. Faucher piled up 56 saves, a career best and program regular-season record, while Kelley scored twice, including the winner 2:54 into overtime, as the Franklin Pierce University women's ice hockey team scored a 2-1 non-conference victory on the road at St. Thomas (Minn.). It was the program's first-ever victory over a WCHA program in just its second-ever game against a team from the league.

With the win, Franklin Pierce improves to 1-2-0, while St. Thomas falls to 1-3-0.

The overtime winner came after freshman Avery Farrell (Otsego, Minn.) and senior Bethany Ross (Canton, Mich.) combined to force a turnover in the Franklin Pierce defensive end. Farrell got her stick to an attempted back-pass into the high slot, which resulted in senior Maija Almich being unable to corral the feed. Ross was on the scene to gain possession and kick the puck ahead to Kelley, who already had a full head of steam exiting the zone.

With a pair of Tommies caught deep, Kelley found herself heading a 2-on-1 from the right side, as Farrell jumped ahead and joined her on the rush, with only junior Brieja Parent back for St. Thomas. Kelley drew Parent and found a lane to feed Farrell, whose one-time attempt from the slot was stymied by St. Thomas sophomore goaltender Saskia Maurer. The rebound came to the right side though, where Kelley was able to elude the check of Parent for just long enough to brush the follow-up attempt back into the yawning net and wave her teammates off the bench in celebration.

Combined with her second-period tally, it marked Kelley's first career multiple-goal game, and was her first collegiate overtime winner as well.

Meanwhile, Faucher (1-2-0) had set about stealing the show all evening. She stopped all 20 shots on her goal in a busy first period, piled on 22 more saves against 23 shots in an even busier second, stopped all 13 shots she faced in the third, and tacked on one final save in overtime, for good measure. It all added up to a career-high 56 saves, which was also the most in a regular-season game in program history and second-most overall in program annals.

It was the fourth performance of 50 or more saves in program history, and the first by somebody other than Emme Ostrander '22. The 55 saves through regulation matched Ostrander's program record for saves through 60 minutes, which she did against Maine in December of 2019.

Earlier in the evening, much like on Friday afternoon, the first period went scoreless at St. Thomas. Unlike Friday, it was the Ravens who struck first in the second frame on Saturday night. The scoring play actually began with a shot from the Tommies, as Almich fired wide left from the between the hash marks. The rebound went off the end boards, and Kelley picked it up in stride, headed the other way. She carried all the way down the right wing, made one move to open a shooting lane and picked the top-right corner from the middle of the right circle for her first goal of the season, unassisted at the 2:05 mark.

St. Thomas had a quick answer, at 5:17, off of a faceoff play in the left-wing circle. Graduate student Anna Promersberger won the draw cleanly back to sophomore Maddy Clough at the left point. Clough, who had a pair of assists on Friday, picked up her first goal of the season with a long shot through traffic, which beat a screened Faucher. There would be no more scoring until Kelley's overtime winner, 37:37 later.

Maurer (1-2-0) finished with 18 saves against 20 shots in defeat for St. Thomas.

The Ravens are back on the road for another non-conference series next weekend, as they travel to No. 11/13 nationally-ranked Penn State for a pair on Oct. 23-24. Puck drop is set for 2 p.m. on both Sunday and Monday at Pegula Ice Arena in University Park, Pa.