The Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks squeezed out a 3-2 win against the Ryerson Rams women’s hockey team on Saturday night at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Head coach Pierre Alain gave the nod to goalie Emma Crawley who was coming off an overtime win on Thursday against Waterloo. She stopped 31 of 34 shots, but the Rams could not take advantage and fell just short of extending their winning streak.
Crawley said the she was impressed with her team’s effort despite the loss.
“Laurier’s one of the best teams not just in the league but in the country too,” Crawley said. “The team skated with the fifth-ranked Hawks for a full 60 minutes.”
The Golden Hawks solved Crawley midway through the second period as Jessie Hurrell opened scoring on the power-play. First-year forward Blair Malthaner replied for the Rams less than five minutes later. In what proved to be a back-and-forth contest, the Golden Hawks took the lead again through Jessica Prevette before Michelle Evagelou tied the game once more in the third period.
Tammy Freiburger gave Laurier its third lead of the game and the No. 5 side in the country managed to hold on this time for the victory.
The Rams were out-shot 34-18 throughout the contest and were able to stay competitive through a solid string of penalty kills. A two-man advantage that came mid-way through the first period saw the Rams take a slashing penalty and, just 40 seconds later, a crosschecking minor.
“It was one of the odd games where the team took a lot of penalties but I’m sure if we work on penalty kill, it’ll help a lot,” Evagelou said.
Alain said the team has to focus on its discipline despite the impressive performance.
“If they are working penalties, I can live with it, [but] if there’s retaliation after the whistle, I don’t like it. But I think today most of them were working penalties,” he said after the loss.
Alain’s side will be focusing on passing and shooting, along with special teams and penalty killing this week in preparation to hit the road for a pair of games next weekend against the York Lions and the UOIT Ridgebacks.