AMHERST – Cara Mancini’s first career multi-goal game lifted the No. 6 Amherst College women’s hockey team past Hamilton, 5-1, Friday night at Orr Rink.

Mancini, a sophomore, tallied one each during the second and third periods for the Mammoths, which claimed their third straight victory Friday against the Continentals.

“[Mancini’s] got an outstanding shot,” Amherst head coach Jeff Matthews said. “She received a nice pass on her first goal and let it rip quick, nice quick release. Then on that second one we were hungry around the net, which this time of year, that’s how you need to score goals, just being relentless at the net front. I thought she was on that goal.”

Ahead 2-1 after 20 minutes, Mancini potted her first of the night at 3 minutes, 22 seconds of the second. Mancini went top shelf past Hamilton goalie Teagan Brown after a clean feed from Maeve Reynolds, making it 3-1.

Later on during the third period, Mancini added an insurance marker with her second of the night at 7:53. The Mammoths forward found the loose puck around the Continentals crease and sent it in, extending the hosts’ lead to 5-1, which held until the final buzzer.

“It’s what I told them after the game, just how they played as a team, how it looked like they played for each other,” Matthews said on what he liked most about his team’s performance. “They were playing the game the right way, which at this time of year you want to be hitting your stride and playing your game and continuous improvement process throughout the year. It was nice to see us executing some of the main elements of our game that make us strong.”

Reynolds and senior Alyssa Xu each registered a pair of points for Amherst, while junior goalie Natalie Stott had 23 saves. Mancini led the Mammoths with three points.

Amherst’s power play proved to be a factor as well as it went 2-for-4 in the contest. Junior Emily Hohmann opened the scoring for the Mammoths on the man-advantage through the early portions of the first period, which set the tone the rest of the evening.

“I feel like our power play has shown improvement,” Matthews said. “We haven’t been quite rewarded with the goals, so it’s a battle of confidence. Just staying confident and not letting the self-doubt creep in. As I tell them, if you score twice out of 10 times that’s a good power play and they have, they’ve stayed resilient and continued to work at it and it was really nice to see them rewarded with a nice goal. That was a big goal.”

Hohmann’s marker came midway through the first at 9:24, on a seeing-eye shot from the right point that found the back of the net, to put Amherst ahead, 1-0.

Hamilton evened the score 1-1 on a nice goal from Abby Weiss. The Continentals forward took a nifty seam pass from Grace Long in the far faceoff dot and powered a wrist shot past Stott, tying the game at 15:18.

In the dying seconds of the first frame, Xu registered the eventual game-winner with her sixth of the season. Xu pushed the Mammoths’ lead t0 2-1 with 58 seconds to go in the first. 

Amherst never looked back afterward as two goals from Mancini, and a breakaway strike from Ayla Abban (team-leading 12th goal) sandwiched in between, helped the Mammoths remain undefeated (10-0-0) at Orr with one home game to go.

Friday’s loss for Hamilton was just its second defeat in its last 10 games. After starting the season 0-4, the Continentals worked their way back to a top-five spot in the NESCAC standings. Matthews was impressed with what he saw from the opposition.

“I thought they looked good,” Matthew said. “I think they’re a very good team. Our league top to bottom is tough. It’s a battle of attrition, it’s hard to win two games in a row. They’re right there, they’re right there, they’re a dangerous team. We knew we’d have our hands full. They play hard, they play with discipline, structure, so we got to be ready [Saturday] for another battle.”

Amherst will finish out its two-game set with Hamilton on Saturday at 3 p.m. The Mammoths will also celebrate Senior Day in their regular-season finale.