January 10, 2006                                                                            
Contact: Daniel O'Reilly
Phone: (802) 654-2929

SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. – The Saint Michael's College women's ice hockey team (3-8, 2-5 ECAC East) opened the 2006 portion of its schedule with a 6-1 loss to Division I opponent, Sacred Heart University (5-8-3) on Tuesday afternoon at Cairns Arena.

For the Purple Knights, who are winless in 12 all-time meetings against the Pioneers, sophomore Gabrielle Bourgeois (New Haven, Vt./Middlebury Union) scored the team's lone goal and Melanie Cullen (Derry, N.H./Pinkerton Academy) stopped 49 of 55 shot attempts.

For Sacred Heart, junior Michelle Panella (Marlboro, N.J.) scored a pair of goals and freshman Gina Arnone (Bridgewater, N.J./Bridgewater-Raritan) contributed a goal and two assists.

The Pioneers opened the scoring 11:20 into the first period, when senior co-captain Sarah Turbert (Norwalk, Conn./Connecticut Polar Bears) slipped one past Cullen thanks to assists from Arnone and Whitney Dziama (Walpole, Mass./Noble and Greenough). Just over two minutes later, Arnone potted what would prove to be the game winner, taking a wrist shot from the top of the left circle that sailed past Cullen's right side to put the visitors up 2-0. The Pioneers went on to score four more unanswered goals, finding themselves en route to what would have been their second 6-0 shutout of the season. Dziama was called for tripping with just 20 seconds to play, however, and coach Chris Donovan pulled his freshman goaltender in favor of an extra attacker. Just four seconds into the power play, Bourgeois scored her fourth goal of the season.

The two teams will square off once again on Wednesday with the opening face-off scheduled for 3 p.m.

For a complete boxscore, click here.