SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. - The Saint Michael's College women's ice hockey team knocked off Nichols College, 3-1, during Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) East action at Cairns Arena on Wednesday. The Purple Knights improve to 5-16-1 overall and 4-10-1 in the league, while the Bison drop to 7-16 and 4-15. Saint Michael's has now won four straight meetings against Nichols.

Sophomore Carolyn Avery (Lexington, Mass./Lexington) netted two goals for Saint Michael's, with classmate Athena Akiki (Allendale, N.J./New Jersey Rockets) also scoring. Senior Shannon Rice (West River, Md./Navy U19), sophomores Sarah Bagley (Concord, Mass./Concord-Carlisle) and Lauren Sullivan (Wakefield, Mass./Middlesex Islanders) and first-year Jillian Witwicki (Danvers, Mass./Pingree School) each had an assist. Sophomore Abby Burke (Bedford, Mass./The Rivers School) collected 19 saves for the win.

Senior Talia Hohmann (Marina, Calif./San Jose Jr. Sharks) scored for Nichols, with assists from classmates Taylor Brown (Winthrop, Mass./Winthrop) and Lisa Coskren (Norwood, Mass./Norwood). Senior Tori Gianformaggio (Huntington Beach, Calif./Boston Shamrocks) turned in 29 saves.

The opening period saw Saint Michael's hold a 1-0 lead on a 12-11 advantage. After outshooting the visitors, 7-1, to start the game, the Purple Knights went on the penalty kill for hooking at 4:41. Right off the ensuing face-off, sophomore Erin Dwyer (Weymouth, Mass./Charles River) grabbed the puck and skated up the ice on a breakaway, but her short-handed bid hit Gianformaggio in the chest. The Purple and Gold scored the game's first goal when Avery, who came off the bench following the penalty kill, received a pass from Witwicki and skated into the offensive zone where she wristed a shot over Gianformaggio's glove at 6:54. Nichols finished the period with four shots in the 2:30, but Burke was up to the task.

The Bison started the second stanza with an offensive charge and nearly potted the tying goal at 2:25 when Brown let loose a blue line shot that hit Burke and then bounced up and landed on the crease, but no player for either team could make a play before Burke dived back on the puck. The Bison had another scoring chance at 7:30 when first-year Laura Christie's (Hudson, Mass./Proctor Academy) breakaway chance sailed wide right. Witwicki then skated in 1-on-1 against a Nichols defender at 12:55, but her shot was stopped off the mask of Gianformaggio.

After a scoreless second period, the final stanza saw a combined three goals on 13 shots. With Nichols skating on the power play, Brown fired a point shot into traffic that deflected off a Saint Michael's defender and kicked to Hohmann, who buried home the shot at 5:33. The Purple Knights broke up the stalemate after a scramble in front of the net saw a rebound off Rice's shot that bounced to Avery, who jammed in the puck to the left side of the net at 13:22. Neither team could generate much of an offensive threat, as Avery also accounted for the hosts' only shot at 15:28 before Gianformaggio was pulled for the extra attacker with 1:47 to play. Fifty-one seconds into the 6-on-5, Akiki corralled the puck at center ice and fired a shot from the hosts' side of the neutral zone that trickled into the empty net with 46.2 seconds remaining.

Saint Michael's concludes its regular season with a pair of home games this weekend, starting Friday at 7 p.m. with an ECAC East contest against Manhattanville College.