Archbishop Williams, Malden Catholic skate to 1-1 tie

CANTON – With the pressure Archbishop Williams was putting on Malden Catholic, it seemed inevitable the Bishops would come away with a victory.

But senior goaltender Megan Mullarky weathered the storm and then some.

In a battle of two top 10 Division 1 programs, the Bishops (7-4-1) and Lancers (7-2-2) skated to a 1-1 tie despite Archbishop Williams owning the shots on goal battle, 38-19, after three periods and a five-minute overtime which settled nothing.

The Bishops were exceptionally electric in the second period with a 17-4 shots on goal edge and scored their lone goal off the stick of McKenzie Lima-Tower. Tower scored off a rebound after Caroline Batchelder fired a wrister from the left slot with only 16 ticks left in the period.

“We just play an aggressive style. We don’t want our girls holding back, we are a good skating team and the last thing I want to do is make them think and we just need puck pressure on the ice and even on the penalty kill – as long as we stay connected – we will be aggressive on the penalty kill as well,” said Bishops head coach Doug Nolan.

Malden Catholic held a 3-1 power play advantage in the game, but the Bishops’ penalty kill limited the Lancers to three shots on goal in total on all three penalties while their aggressive style produced eight shots on net even down a skater on the ice.

But an untimely penalty on Archbishop Williams came with 2:06 left in regulation and gave Malden Catholic its final power play. Malden Catholic head coach Alexa Hingston took a page out of the Bishops’ aggressive play book and pulled Mullarky for a six-on-four advantage on their end of the ice.

With 23.7 seconds left in the game and only 17 seconds left in the penalty, Abbie Poole finally found the back of the net on a scrum in front of the crease to tie things up and send the game to overtime. The assist on the equalizer went to Alyssa Jankowski and Mullarky saved the day with 36 saves.

“Megan played great, she stood on her head in the second period. We’ve done two overtimes now and that helps us, because we might face overtime (in the playoffs) hopefully, so we know what to do now,” said Hingston. “We came back which was good, we faced some adversity. The Archies are a strong team and work hard. They definitely outworked us in parts of the game, but Megan gave us a chance there in the second period.”