The Concordia Stingers women’s hockey team won their first game of 2014 at the annual Theresa Humes Women’s hockey tournament on Saturday, Jan.4, beating the St. Thomas Tommies 3-2 on home ice.
After outshooting the Tommies 12-0 through the first half of the first period, Concordia opened the scoring 12 minutes in when left winger Audrey Morand skated in on her own and got a shot past St. Thomas netminder, Kristin Wolfe. Six minutes later, Concordia doubled their lead as centre Alyssa Sherrard got another fast shot into the back of the net.
With four minutes left in the first period, St. Thomas got a penalty when defenceman Michelle Savoie was called for interference, but the Stingers couldn’t capitalize on the man advantage and went into the second period with a 2-0 lead.
Eleven minutes into the second period, Concordia got their first penalty of the game when centre Valerie Wade got called for tripping, but St. Thomas failed to get a shot on Stingers goalie, Briar Bache, during the power play. But after Tommies defenceman Amy Duffield got called for hooking and forward Kelty Apperson was sent to the box for for slashing, the Stingers were able to make it 3-0 on the 5-on-3 advantage when left winger Kerianne Schofield got a good shot into the back of the net.
St. Thomas got a puck past Bache on their third shot of the game reducing the Stingers lead to 3-1 after 40 minutes.
St. Thomas was looking for the comeback heading into the third period as they began taking more shots at the net. With about six minutes left in the game, St. Thomas got a power play goal from forward Teah Anderson after Stingers centre Alexandria D’Onofrio was called for roughing. St. Thomas was pressuring for the equalizer but failed to score and the game ended with a final score of 3-2 for the Concordia Stingers.
Stingers head coach Les Lawton was proud of the way his team played in this game.
“It was a pretty solid effort and I am very proud of the way we played and I am looking forward to the game tomorrow vs. Queens,” he said.
“The girls played amazing today,” added Bache. “I liked how we remained focused and the way we were outshooting them, we played a lot better than yesterday where I found we were rusty and it proves how hard work pays off.
