by Joelle Solowiejczyk & Temira Koenig

 The Frisch Cougars had an important victory last Thursday night as they faced off against The SAR Sting, the Eastern division #1 seed. The stakes of the game were high and it determined who would be moving on to the semi-finals. In their last face-off early in the season, SAR came away with the victory, but the Cougars were confident going into the match. Both teams went in expecting a good game. SAR had homecourt advantage, and was able to score two goals in the first period before Frisch had a chance to get used to the SAR rink. Then, with an amazing goal credited to Sigal Levine, the Cougars began to gain their momentum. Still down by one, the Cougars entered the second period confident that they could fix the gap and tie up the game. 

The second period started off positively for Frisch with another spectacular goal from half court by Freshman defenseman Joelle Solowiejczyk that tied up the game. SAR scored shortly after, once again giving SAR the lead. Then, with less than 4 minutes left in the period, senior offenseman Sigal Levine scored her second goal of the night, tying up the game once again at 3-3. 

The third period began just as the first one had, it was anyone’s game to win. Early in the third period, junior defenseman Liz Pavel scored a goal on a rocket of a shot that went top corner, giving Frisch their first lead of the game 4-3. Both Frisch and SAR continued to play hard, putting up a good fight with hard work and determination until the last second. Halfway through the 3rd period, Tara Davidoff scored a Power Play goal, an impressive redirection in front putting Frisch up by 2 with a score of 5-3. SAR kept on fighting and they were able to cut the lead in half with a nice goal off of a face-off.  SAR continued to put on pressure and with about 45 seconds remaining SAR went on the power play and pulled their goalie  giving themselves a two player advantage in an effort to tie up the game.  Everybody was on the edge of their seats as the Frisch goalie, Nechama Levie, made some spectacular saves to deny the pressing Sting. The game ended with Nechama gloving one last shot as the buzzer sounded giving Frisch the 5-4 victory. Frisch now moves on to the semi-finals to play against Kushner on Tuesday May 31st.