BUFFALO, N.Y. – In her first game back with the Mercyhurst women's ice hockey team after her bronze-medal stint in the 2018 Winter Olympics, Emma Nuutinen scored the game-winning overtime goal for Mercyhurst to defeat Syracuse 3-2 in the College Hockey America (CHA) semifinal round Friday evening.

The Mercyhurst win (17-14-4) advances the Lakers to the CHA Championship game against #9 Robert Morris tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. at HarborCenter.

"It was certainly dramatic," said head coach Michael Sisti. "It's probably good for our program to be in a game like that. The coaches don't want to be in a game like that, but I thought our kids showed great character and played really hard down the stretch."

The overtime winner was the second of the season for Nuutinen. Both came against the Orange (13-21-2), with the last being on December 9.

"Our beginning of the game was not that good," said Nuutinen, "but we were able to get better during the game. We had confidence to play and knew that it was going to come at some point. This time it was me and it was fun to score."

Mercyhurst's other goal scorers included Summer-Rae Dobson in the first period and Jennifer MacAskill in the second. Syracuse had goals from Emma Polaski and Stephanie Grossi.

The Lakers fell behind 1-0 at 8:09 in the first period when Polaski finished a nice passing sequence for the game's first score. Grossi and Savannah Rennie had assists on the play.

Mercyhurst's response was swift as Dobson tied the game at 9:17. Brooke Hartwick's two-line pass was right on target for Dobson who went to the backhand for her tenth of the season. Callie Paddock earned the secondary helper.

The second period was littered with penalties from both sides, but it would be the Lakers who made the Orange pay for their mistakes to take their first lead of the game. After three-straight Syracuse penalties in less than a two-minute span, Mercyhurst scored on the extended five-on-three advantage. MacAskill stuffed home a centering pass from Sam Isbell for her first power-play marker of the season to take the 2-1 lead. Molly Blasen also had an assist.

After a Mercyhurst penalty carried over from the second period to the third period, Syracuse knotted the game at two after Grossi redirected a shot from the point by Lindsay Eastwood just 31 seconds into the frame.

The remainder of the third period saw some back-and-forth chances for both teams. Mercyhurst had eight shots on goal, all of which were stopped by freshman goaltender Edith D'Astous-Morea. Mercyhurst had several other scoring opportunities on shots missed wide.

In the overtime frame, the first 16 minutes was more of the same for the Lakers. Mercyhurst fired 15 shots compared to Syracuse's three in OT but couldn't find the back of the net. On the 16^th shot of the period at 16:36, Nuutinen lifted a rebound on her backhand past D'Astous-Morea for the game-winning score.

"[Sarah] Hine had a good pass to Vilma [Tanskanen]," Nuutinen said. "She had a shot and didn't go in so I had the rebound and luckily it went in."

This was the fourth-straight meeting between Mercyhurst and Syracuse in the CHA Tournament that was decided by one goal and the second-straight game decided in overtime (2016).

"It's tough to end a team's season and knock them out," Sisti said. "Our kids did a good job staying with it."

The Lakers face Robert Morris in the CHA championship game tomorrow at 4 p.m. The teams split their regular season matchups this season 2-2 and the Lakers have narrowly outscored the Colonials 6-5 in cumulatively.

"We know what it's going to take," said MacAskill. "We're going to be excited about tonight's win, but it's going to be a tough battle and we're going to take care of ourselves tonight and come back tomorrow ready to go."

MORE STATS AND INFO
-Kennedy Blair picked up her tenth win of the season and her fifth win in the last seven games after her 19 save performance.
-Mercyhurst outshot Syracuse 43-21 for the game. The Lakers are 7-1 this season when firing 40+ shots on goal.
-The Lakers led 2-1 entering the third period and remain undefeated (14-0-1) when ahead after 40 minutes.
-There were 11 total penalties called in the game; four on Mercyhurst and seven on Syracuse. Mercyhurst went 1-for-7 on its power-play chances with 13 shots while the Orange went 1-for-4 with three shots.

THEY SAID IT
Coach Sisti when asked about how this team deals with adversity: "We're young and we were in a lot of situations this season where most of our players haven't been in. But we went through it. We managed to do that and claw out of some tough deficits records-wise."

Sisti on tomorrow's championship game: "I'd like to think we've got our best hockey ahead of us. We have a chance to play for a championship and move on to the [NCAA tournament] and I'm excited for our players and looking forward to seeing them play."

MacAskill on her power-play goal: "We actually knew we were going to do that off the draw. We worked on it at practice this week. It wasn't really working at practice but we said we were just going to try it and it worked out. It was a nice pass from Sam [Isbell] on the backdoor and a nice switch by the [defense] up top."

Nuutinen on being back playing with Mercyhurst: "I'm just so excited to be back with this team. We have a great chance to win this league tomorrow and it's given me energy. It's so fun to play."

Nuutinen on her goal celebration: "I saw some of our friends and where they were cheering for us. It was a happy moment so we went to celebrate with them."