On Friday afternoon, the StFX X-Women played against the Queen’s Gaels to kick off the second day of the CIS women’s hockey championship. The game was an equal competition between the two teams until the third period when StFX scored the tying goal, followed by a winner in overtime.
The Gaels almost immediately made a dent in the game in the first period, with fourth-year Brittany McHaffie scoring, assisted by second-year defender Danielle Girard, and fifth-year Kristin Smith, 2:50 into the game. In response, StFX tirelessly approached, the Gaels’ net, taking multiple shots, but were unsuccessful due to the work of Gaels’ goalie, Karissa Savage.
“In the AUS final, we were down a goal and we ended up coming back. The girls have a tremendous amount of heart and work ethic so I knew they were going to come back, so my job was to just shut the door,” X-Women goalie Katie Greenway said.
The X-Women seemed to take a few minutes to comfortably settle into the game, but once they conceded, StFX tied themselves together to have a stronger presence on the ice. The puck was in the X-Women’s end for much of the first period, but the Gaels were unable to capitalize.
“As a first period at nationals, it was a decent period,” Queen’s head coach Matt Holmberg explained. “There was some decent flow, we got everyone in the game, certainly got up by a goal so there were some things that we wanted to continue to work on, but as far as a first period at nationals goes, we’re pretty happy with it.”
The second period was scoreless. It began with Queen’s struggling to get the puck out of their end zone. There were a lot of shots, but the newfound aggression of the Gaels allowed them to block more shots before they reached the goalie, Karissa Savage. The two teams were both very physical with each other, pushing each other into the boards and onto the ice.
In the final period, both teams came in with aggressive attitudes. A lot of time was spent around the Queen’s net, but StFX was not able to cause any damage, until Jenna Pitts scored a controversial goal 4:10 into the period, assisted by Erin Brophy. It appeared to many as if the puck was kicked into the net, but after discussion among the refs, the goal was ruled as good, and the game was tied.
“It looked to me from the bench that their game-tying goal was kicked in,” Holmberg added. “I asked the ref; she agreed that it had touched the skate, but she didn’t see a kicking motion, so that’s one of those interpretations that I think sometimes you see it one way and the ref sees it the other way.”
After this goal, the Gaels turned on the defense and were keeping the puck away from their net, but they were unable to take shots on the X-Women’s net. Neither team was able to score again in the third period and they went into overtime.
“We felt confident, we felt loose,” Holmberg said. “We knew it was going to be a close game and we knew we had to be ready, but we do play a lot of four on four in practice, and so I think the team was feeling fairly confident going into overtime.”
Soon after the faceoff, Queen’s’ rookie Alisha Sealey took a close shot, but it was saved, followed by another shot by Mary Coughlin, also saved; the X-Women’s goalie was not letting anything by her.
“Sometimes in these games when it’s so back and forth, a big save by me or a good breakout by the girls, or a close opportunity by the girls, like scoring on their net, just builds momentum. If I can do anything, if I can shoot a puck out or make a big save, that gives them momentum to go out and score, then I’m going to try and do it,” Greenway explained.
Queen’s was fighting hard against StFX, but in the end, the X-Women’s Taylor Dale scored with an assist by Abygail Laking and Jenna Downey, winning the game and keeping themselves in the running for a medal this weekend.
“This is a tough level of hockey, and Queen’s is a very good hockey team, and they’re obviously rested coming in today,” StFX head coach David Synishin expressed. “What we did in the third period and how we played in overtime we played with a lot of heart, a lot of gut.”
“We usually wait towards the end and we just said this is something that we set our sights on and our goals, and we worked so hard in the third that I think we didn’t want to allow this to get away from us, and we knew if we won we had the opportunity to play for a medal on Sunday, so it was just really dig deep and show the heart that they showed all year long.”
“I just know that the players are going to regroup and look forward to playing Calgary tomorrow,” Holmberg said confidently. “We came here with the sole intention of trying to win every game we play, so that hasn’t changed. The fact that we lost this game doesn’t change the fact that we intend to go in and hopefully beat Calgary tomorrow and hopefully take it from there.”
