By: Jackson Starr (Photos by Marc Lafleur)
OTTAWA - The Carleton Ravens defeated the McGill Martlets 4-3 on home ice Sunday afternoon, wrapping up a solid two-win weekend at the Icehouse.
Carleton battled through adversity at different points in the game to come out victorious. “It was a bit of a rough game for us, but we managed to find a way,” Ravens defender Nicole Hunter (Pickering, Ont.) said postgame. “We battled back from being down early, everyone worked hard, and we got two wins (on the weekend).”
The Ravens came out of the gate a bit slow against a driven McGill team looking for its first win on the season. The first quality chance of the game resulted in a goal by way of the Martlets. A nice pass to pick out Christiana Colizza on a breakaway who beat Marie-Eve Cote (Quebec City, Que.) on the first shot of the game. That made it 1-0 McGill just under four minutes in. Ravens head coach Stacey Colarossi commented postgame on the team's difficult start. “It's great that we could battle back from (being behind) and we had the character in the room to do that today. But showing up on time and being ready to start the game is important.”
Carleton was able to respond well to that adversity though, and after drawing a penalty in the offensive zone, we’re able to tie the game. Rhys Cole-Ashbury (Mississauga, Ont.) let a wrister go from the middle point, beating McGill goaltender Sophie Lajeunesse and tying the game up at 1-1. Both teams traded power play opportunities as the first went on, but nothing came of it and the score was tied after one period of play.
In the Second, Carleton was able to get its game going. Hunter picked up a nice pass from Jenna Morais (Burlington, Ont.) to give the Ravens the lead. “Jenna gave me a nice pass through the slot,” Hunter said, “it was a good shot and a nice pass from Jenna.” After conceding, McGill started to push the Ravens into a tightly contested, low event and physical matchup. The Ravens were, however, able to create space and generate a goal. On a two-on-one, Annika Scurfield (Canmore, Alta.) picked up a rebound from a Jackie Grosso (Etobicoke, Ont.) shot to extend the Ravens' lead. Carleton saw that throughout the period and held a two-goal advantage into the third.
The Ravens looked to close things out in the third, pinning McGill in their own end to try and kill as much clock as possible with a two-goal lead. Carleton was aggressive on defence, but McGill did a good job at asserting itself in the offensive zone. With five minutes remaining in the third, McGill broke through. Quynn Campbell scored for McGill with the Ravens now needing to close things out up by only one. The Ravens then did a good job closing things out, keeping McGill pressured on their own end. When the Martlets did get the puck and pull the goalie, Hunter potted the empty netter. The Martlets would add another to get it back to within one in the final minute, but Carleton held on for the 4-3 victory.
The win is Carleton’s fourth on the season already matching its season total from last year. Carleton now holds a 4-5-1 record on the year still on the outside looking in at the playoff picture. The Ravens will look to build off of the two weekend wins next weekend against the Concordia Stingers and Bishops Gaiters.
“I thought we were very disorganized, and we didn’t play within our structure today so we’re lucky to come out with the two points.”
“That’s the first time this year we’ve played a team that we were ahead of in the standings, so you never know how that impacts the preparation inside the room. We need to be more focused and dial it in and do our own jobs for a whole 60 minutes.”
“I don’t think they’re going to be taking us very lightly this time. We’re probably going to have our hands full so we’ll make sure we’re working on our five- and six-man system up and down the ice so we can execute the structure and the forecheck that has had some success for us.”
“We definitely did have some positives; you don’t win a game without positives throughout it but it's always easy to pick on the hard side.”
“I think we have good chemistry. We played the first half of the season together last year so just building off of that. We read each other well, we communicate and it's nice to have someone that I trust back there.”
