A classic goaltender’s battle: Russia’s 20-year-old Anna Prugova vs. Switzerland’s Florence Schelling, the two-time Hockey East player of the year at Northeastern University. Prugova was nearly perfect. Schelling was better.
Date: 15-Feb
Sport: Women’s ice hockey
Event: Switzerland vs. Russia
Score: Switzerland 2, Russia 0
What happened: A tense scoreless affair for 30 minutes until Switzerland’s Stefanie Marty scored halfway through the second period. Russia couldn’t convert four power plays through two periods.
The host country came out hard in the third and peppered Florence Schelling, outshooting the Swiss 19-7. But the Swiss did a nice job of clearing traffic so Schelling could see the shots coming.
Russia pulled goalie Anna Prugova with 90 seconds left and piled on the pressure. But the Swiss defense blocked a couple of shots and sent Lara Stalder the other way with the puck. The Russian defense retreated in front of the open net, but Stalder calmly buried her shot to seal the game and a semifinal date with Canada.
Ominously, just after the final horn sounded on the Russian women’s Olympic hopes, the men conceded a go-ahead goal to the USA.
Duresport.com 