WINCHENDON, Mass. (November 26, 2022) -- Three goals in a span of just 3:35 in the second period were the difference on Saturday night at the Jason Ritchie Ice Arena, as the Franklin Pierce University women's ice hockey team stepped out of conference and posted a 4-1 victory over Hockey East foe Holy Cross. Senior Stefanie Caban (Fitchburg, Mass.) tallied the game-winning goal, while junior Jenna Ruiz (Webster, Wis.) notched a goal and an assist.

With the win, Franklin Pierce improves to 6-7-1, while Holy Cross falls to 2-15-1 and has lost 10 in a row. The two teams will wrap up their weekend home-and-home with a 5 p.m. faceoff at Holy Cross on Sunday.

The first period went scoreless on Saturday, but the Ravens took care of business in the second period. The scoring opened with the first collegiate goal for freshman McKenzie Rich (Rochester, Minn.) at the 7:08 mark. Freshman Avery Farrell (Otsego, Minn.) sent the puck to the middle of the blue line for sophomore Julia Stevens (Minneapolis, Minn.), who hammered a shot through traffic from there, but missed wide left. The rebound off the end boards came back to the left post for Rich, who slipped a shot home on the short side.

Franklin Pierce doubled the lead to 2-0 just 67 second later, with a power-play marker at 8:15. Sophomore Mikayla Kelley (Eagan, Minn.) started things on the left side this time, and sent the puck up top for Caban. Caban put a low shot towards the net, which deflected off the stick of Holy Cross freshman goaltender Brooke Loranger and into the net for Caban's first of the year.

Ruiz capped the scoring barrage with an individual effort at 10:43. She took control of the puck at the red line on the left wing, made her way into the offensive end and sniped the top-left corner from the left circle, for her fourth of the campaign.

Holy Cross got on the board early in the third period, but it was all the Crusaders would get. From her own end, junior Vaia Graves threw the puck up the ice, and fellow junior Millie Sirum got a stick to it in the neutral zone. The puck continued to bounce along, until junior Bryn Saarela corralled it in the offensive end, with a partial breakaway, and picked the top shelf for her fourth of the season, at 4:18.

Franklin Pierce created the 4-1 final with an empty-net tally at 19:38. Ruiz chipped the puck out of her own end on the left-wing side. Senior Cassidy Jones (Stillwater, Minn.) ran it down in the offensive end and salted the game away with her second of the year.

Freshman Jill Hertl (Highland Park, Ill.) finished with 32 saves against 33 shots to pick up the win (5-3-1) in the Franklin Pierce crease. Loranger (0-6-1) stopped 18 of 21 shots at the other end for Holy Cross.a