CALGARY – The Dinos women's hockey team's winning streak was extended to five games Saturday night as they completed a hard-fought sweep of the Red Deer College Queens with a 2-1 shootout win. Thursday night the Dinos travelled to Red Deer and defeated the Queens 4-3 on a goal scored in the final 4 seconds after giving up a 2-0 lead.
Melissa Zubick commented on the week's action following the game, “[on Thursday] we stole the game in the last three seconds and then we had to come back and be prepared for this game and come out strong.”
And come out strong they did, shooting out to a 1-0 lead early with a dominating performance in the first five minutes. Tiara Schoenroth notched the first marker after intercepting a pass in the Red Deer zone. Left alone in front of Grace Gaska, Tiara made no mistake, scoring 4:38 into the game.
Red Deer seemed to be asleep in the opening of the game taking their first real chance on net six minutes into the game and not providing a pushback against the Dino attack. The Queens didn't give up after this initial setback, wresting control of the puck back from the Dinos during the second half of the period.
Grace Gaska was a key part of Red Deer's successes this game allowing only one goal on 31 shots with nine of these occurring during the pressure-filled first period.
Katie Urness backstopped the other end in impressive fashion as well turning away 14 of 15 shots.
The Dinos lost momentum but not the lead in the second period due in part to a series of penalties to both teams that had the game played four on four for nearly a third of the second period. The pressure built further as the Queens were awarded a penalty shot at the end of the period; Amber Graham took the attempt but was denied by Urness who deflected the shot wide.
Entering the third it looked like the Dinos lead may hold but that was brought to an abrupt end by Megan Abt at 13:04 who zinged a slap shot from the left boards that flew by a number of players and into the top left corner of the Dinos net.
Neither team was able to gain an upper hand in the remainder of the game and so the teams set up for a shootout.
Lianne Legere, the Dinos' second shooter commented on the situation, "[the game] started off awesome, everyone was there. Then we put ourselves in a situation that we never want to be in again.”
Legere would pull the Dinos out of the fire with her shootout goal that beat Gaska by drifting through the five hole after a couple of failed dekes.
“I really only have one move," she smiled. "It kind of malfunctioned and worked out.”
Katie Urness was solid on the shootout turning away all three Red Deer attackers.
These wins maintain the Dinos' hold on the lead in the ACAC with a 12-2 record while Red Deer drops to 6-7-1, which puts them in fourth spot when combined with MacEwan's sweep of SAIT this weekend.
The Dinos are in action again next week when they take on the NAIT Ooks. That series begins in Calgary at the Olympic Oval on Friday, Jan. 23 with a 7:30 p.m. start before proceeding to Edmonton for a Saturday night tilt.
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