The Dalhousie Tigers Women’s Hockey team lost 3-1 to the Saint Mary’s Huskies on Wednesday, Oct. 24, at the Halifax Forum.
“We battled hard,” said Tigers head coach Sean Fraser. “I think the effort was there tonight, we just need to work on the execution.”
The Huskies opened the scoring in the first period. Huskies forward Haley Hallihan shot the puck on goal. Tigers goaltender Mati Barrett made the save but the rebound came out to Huskies’ Captain Breanna Lanceleve and she shot it into the net.
In the second period, the Huskies took a two-goal lead on a powerplay goal. There was a scramble in front of the Tigers’ net, and Huskies forward Caitlyn Manning whacked the puck behind Barrett and into the net.
With three minutes left in the third period, Tigers defenseman Rachel Carr fired a wrist shot from the point that got through Huskies goaltender Rebecca Clark and in, to make the score 2-1. Lisa Maclean got the assist.
A minute later, the Tigers got called holding penalty, and were upset with the call.
“It’s one of those calls where you think it’s a questionable call but at the end of the day there is not much you can do, you just got to fight through those,” said Fraser.
With a minute left in the game the Tigers pulled their goalie while still shorthanded to give the team five skaters on the ice in order to try to tie the game.
However, 50 seconds later, Huskies forward Caitlyn Schell scored on the empty net put the game out of reach. The Huskies won 3-1.
The Tigers’ improved defensively in this game. The last time these two teams met, on Oct. 21, the Tigers gave up 48 shots. In this game, they only gave up 23.
However, Dalhousie only scored one goal on 19 shots, and Tigers forward Lisa Maclean believes improving the offense is the next step.
“Offensively, we just need to bear down on our chances,” said Maclean. “Obviously you can’t score one goal a night and win a game.”
The Tigers have also had to deal with a few injuries. Veteran players Joleen MacInnis, Kenzie McPhee, Jessie Rietveld, and Morgan Kidney were all out of the lineup. Additionally, defenseman Jennifer Thompson ran into the goal post in this game and she will need to be evaluated.
“We have had quite a few injuries,” said Fraser. “We have been hit by the injury bug pretty badly this year but luckily we got a pretty deep lineup and someone else can step in.”
Overall, Maclean was happy with the Tigers’ competitive level in this game.
“We battled hard right to the end. Obviously we were down 2-0 and scored late in the third there to give us a chance to come back, you got to give it to the girls they battled all night.”
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