Courtesy of Amherst Athletics

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Avenging a 0-1-1 record against the Colby Mules during the regular season, the third-seeded Amherst College women's ice hockey team picked up the win when it mattered most as the Mammoths fought past No. 2 Colby, 3-1, Saturday at Kenyon Arena in a NESCAC Championship Semifinal contest.

With the victory, Amherst claims its 16th win of the year and improves to 16-5-5 overall, while Colby closes its 2019-2020 campaign with a 15-6-5 overall record.

Getting on the board in the first period, Amherst broke open scoring at the 16:31 mark as juniors Emma Flynn and Kaitlin Hoang teamed up to give the Mammoths a 1-0 lead. Picking off a shot from the hash marks on the right boards, Hoang raced out of the visitors' defensive end and down the ice on a 2-v-1 before hitting Flynn on the far left post for the one-touch redirect score.

Colby's Moira Mullaney potted her fifth goal of the winter to pull the sides into a 1-1 stalemate with assists from Sadie Kuhn and Izzy Tegtmeyer. Grabbing a dish from Kuhn in the neutral zone, Mullaney sent a bouncing shot on target from just inside the blue line that trickled through the legs of the Mammoths' keeper.

Countering four minutes later, Hoang logged her second point of the day and what stood as the game-winner with 6:30 remaining as she skated onto a puck at mid-ice, dodged a defender at the blue line, and cut to the middle before ripping a low wrist shot from the high slot off the leg of a Mules' defender and over the goal line, five-hole.

Sealing the victory with 1:03 to go before the buzzer, Carley Daly notched a final goal for the Mammoths as she took advantage of a Colby miscue at the blueline to register an empty-net goal and lift Amherst to the 3-1 victory.

Making 28 saves, sophomore Caitlin Walker (15-5-5) earned the win in frame for Amherst, while Nina Prünster (9-4-1) made 18 stops for Colby in the losing effort.

The Mules owned a  29-21 edge in shots on target, while both sides finished 0-for-2 on the power play.

With the semifinal victory, Amherst advances to tomorrow's NESCAC Championship Final and is set to take on top-seeded Middlebury at 2 p.m. after the Panthers clinched a 2-1 comeback victory over No. 4 Hamilton in the first Semifinal game of the day.