By Jackson Starr (Photo: Marc Lafleur)
OTTAWA - The Carleton Ravens women’s hockey team fell 4-3 in overtime at the hands of the rival uOttawa Gee-Gees Sunday afternoon in the second game of the Colonel By Classic at TD Place. The Ravens jumped out to an early lead, but the game evened out as it went along and the Gee-Gees were able to find the winner in overtime.
It was another very strong start to the game for the Ravens. Carleton played with a lot of energy right out of the gate and were strong on the forecheck. The Ravens were able to break the ice off of a nice pass from Justina Beard (Metcalfe, Ont.) to set up Hayden Serniuk (Burlington, Ont.) for the game's first goal and give the Ravens a 1-0 lead. Carleton continued to pressure after scoring, and despite a missed power play opportunity, were able to push the pace. The Ravens held a 10-6 shot advantage through the opening frame and entered the dressing room up 1-0.
In the second, uOttawa found its form and came out of the gate strong. In the first minute of the period, off of an offensive zone faceoff win for the Gee Gees, the team's leading scorer Abigail Moloughney rifled one five-hole on Ravens goalie Marie-Eve Cote (Quebec City, Que.) to tie the game up. That goal gave the Gee Gees momentum to generate and test Cote, who had to come up with a few big second period stops. The Gee Gees also had a couple looks on the power play in the middle frame but a combination of solid penalty killing and big saves from Cote kept the game tied. Both teams entered the dressing room tied at one apiece through 40 minutes.
The game started to open up from an offensive standpoint in what was a high intensity third period. Both teams traded chances early on in the third, with the Ravens finally breaking the tie seven minutes in. Sydney Berta (Geneva, SWI.) made a nice play to carry the puck up the right-wing side, cut towards the front of the goal and beat Gee Gees goaltender Mahika Sarrazin low glove to give Carleton the lead.
The Gee Gees though, quickly answered as four minutes later Beatrice Bilodeau jammed in a loose puck to put one past an outstretched Cote to tie things right back up. Less than a minute later, the Gee Gees used momentum to break the tie. Sophie Gareau entered the zone on her own and rifled one high blocker on Cote to give the Gee Gees the lead.
Ravens head coach Stacey Colarossi used the opportunity to take a timeout and settle her team down. That timeout worked as the Ravens were able to answer and tie the game back up. Lanie Guimond (Kirkland Lake, Ont.) found Aofie Mahaffy (Sudbury, Ont.) in the slot, letting a shot go which fluttered off of a Gee Gee and bounced into the net to once again tie the game back up. Despite chances at both ends late the score remained tied through regulation. The two teams headed to overtime deadlocked at 3-3.
In overtime, the game settled down with both teams trying to hold puck possession. That was until the Gee Gees got a crack at the power play and at the tail end of the first overtime session, Kylie Lalonde beat Cote high blocker to win it for the Gee Gees.
The loss is Carleton’s third in overtime on the season, dropping its record to 6-8-3 on the year. The Ravens will look to get back in the win column Wednesday at the Icehouse when welcoming the Concordia Stingers into town.
“We have a really good connection. I really like playing with both of them. We just know where each other are and when we make mistakes we’re right there to help out.”
ON THIRD PERIOD TIMEOUT:
“We took a good timeout, had a chat with the coach. We just needed to keep our play simple and stick to the game plan and that’s what we did.”
“Obviously a bit of an emotional game. Exciting to finally be playing in this building and all the history that goes along with it but at the end of the day our players generated poor execution throughout 60 minutes and throughout the overtime.
ON PENALTY IN OVERTIME:
“I was absolutely shocked to make a call like that in overtime and late when it was 3-3. It is what it is, they're here to do their job and obviously she saw something that I didn’t.”
ON USE OF EMOTION IN THE GAME:
“I don’t think we used it to our advantage early and we let them take a few liberties on our goaltender. We definitely didn’t add fire to our bellies in a way one might think it may.”
LOOKING AHEAD:
“We got a point tonight. If you look at what we’ve done in the last three games, we’ve done ok. One team has to win, and one team has to lose but to at least grab a point here, we're happy with our performance.”
