Stingers lose after Carabins comeback

The Concordia Stingers were up 2-0 at one point in the game. Photos by Alex Hutchins.

Concordia’s women’s hockey team gave up a two-goal lead to UdeM on Sunday

The Concordia Stingers women’s hockey team lost 4-2 to the Université de Montréal Carabins on Sunday. The Stingers started the game strong, but surrendered four unanswered goals in the loss.

The Stingers played their best in the first period, outshooting the Carabins 13-5 and notching the game’s first goal. Ten minutes into the the first period, Stingers forward Audrey Belzile one-timed a pass from forward Stephanie Lalancette past the blocker of Carabins goalie Marie-Pier Chabot.

Early in the second period, Stingers forward Alexandria D’Onofrio provided the game’s second goal, deking past a Carabins defender and scoring on a breakaway to give the home team a two-goal lead.

However, the Stingers struggled from that point on, as the Carabins prevented them from establishing consistent offensive zone pressure for the rest of the game.

“As a whole unit, we didn’t do a great job in the second and third period,” said Stingers head coach Julie Chu. “We had a really strong first period, we came out with a lot of energy, and in the second and third we got outworked.”

Carabins forward Valérie Drouin scored for Montréal in the second period, tipping the puck past Concordia goalie Katherine Purchase to make the score 2-1.

Purchase, playing in her 12th game of the year, allowed four goals on 31 shots for the Stingers. Despite the loss, Purchase has been improving from her poor start to the season.

“We left Kat out to hang on a couple of breakaways,” Chu said. “We’ve got to be better as a whole unit. It doesn’t lie on just one player.”

The Carabins continued to press the Stingers in the third period, frequently preventing the Stingers from breaking out of their own zone. As Chu explained, the team’s defensive struggles mainly had to do with consistency.

“A lot of it is just effort,” Chu said. “Taking care of the puck, and making sure that we have opportunities to have smart chips in places where we can get the puck [out of our zone] or relieve some pressure to get back to our forecheck.”

Carabins forward Rika Pilon-Robert scored three and a half minutes into the third period, trickling a shot past the glove of Purchase, tying the game. Five minutes later, Carabins forward Jessica Cormier gave her team the lead, shooting and scoring on a two-on-one rush.

Carabins forward Annie Germain finished off the game with six minutes left in the period, capitalizing on a breakaway chance, giving Montréal their final 4-2 lead.

While coach Chu isn’t panicking about her team’s place in the standings, she said she and her staff must emphasize that everybody needs to play 60 minutes of solid hockey.

“If the score ends up in a loss, then at least we can hang our hats on the fact that we put the effort there,” Chu said. “Tonight, we didn’t work hard enough to deserve anything better than what we got.”

The Stingers now have a 5-7-1 record, and will play again on Jan. 21 against McGill.

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