The Concordia Stingers women’s hockey team beat the ninth-ranked Saint Mary’s Huskies 2-1 Friday night at the Ed Meagher Arena.
The Stingers seem to have forgotten how to lose a regular season game as the win stretched their unbeaten streak to seven games.
Concordia got goals from Roxanne Dupuis and Isabelle Caron and some big, timely saves from Cecilia Anderson to beat the Huskies.
Dupuis’ goal on the powerplay opened the scoring when she pinched in from the point to poke in a rebound. The Huskies suffered from a collective brain cramp when they left Dominique Rancour wide open to take the shot that created the scoring chance.
Rancour isn’t the biggest player on the ice, but the fact that Saint Mary’s left the team’s leading scorer – and a scoring threat whenever she is on the ice – wide open during a power play, shows something was missed during their pre-game scouting.
The Huskies tied up the game late in the first period when Courtney Schriver put a rebound past Anderson on only their third shot of the period. The Stingers took the lead for good when Sophie Beaudry led Isabelle Caron, who went around two Saint Mary’s defencemen and placed the puck over the glove of Danielle Brunet.
Throughout the rest of the second period and most of the third, the Stingers missed countless scoring opportunities. The Stingers had several opportunities to score, including two breakaways. The failure to bury the late opportunities and put the game out of reach is something that disappointed head coach Les Lawton despite the win. “We let them stay in the game rather than trying to get them out of it,” he said. “We’re shutting teams down but I’m a little concerned that we’re not putting away our chances.”
Late in the game, there were some questionable penalty calls by the referee, according to Lawton. He didn’t call a penalty when a Saint Mary’s player had her stick in the face mask of Isabelle Caron, but went on to call two penalties on Concordia, including a seemingly minor hooking penalty on Sandy Roy which put the Stingers two players short for 58 seconds.
Despite the streak, Les Lawton remained focused on the task at hand. “I just take it one game at a time.”
