By CLAUDE SCILLEY
It should have been a hostile environment.
The Queen’s Golden Gaels went into the game undefeated at home; they had a score to settle with the visiting Guelph Gryphons, one of just two teams to hand Queen’s a regulation-time defeat this year. Late in a close campaign, this was an opportunity to put some distance in the standings between themselves and another contending team.
Rather than making the Memorial Centre inhospitable, at the start of their hockey game the Gaels were instead gracious hosts.
“We were on our heels for the first 10 or 15 minutes,” Gaels coach Matt Holmberg said. “They scored in that time and that gave them some momentum.”
That first-period goal gave the Gryphons a lead they would never surrender, and they went on to defeat Queen’s 3-1 in an Ontario University Athletics women’s hockey game at the Memorial Centre.
The victory moved Guelph, the No. 7-ranked team in Canada, past Queen’s, the fourth-ranked team, into second place in the ridiculously tight OUA standings. Both teams have 27 points, the Gryphons having achieved theirs in one game less than the Gaels. Windsor stands one point back, while Toronto and Laurier are tied for fifth place with 25.
Western, 14-1-2, leads the league with 30 points.
“We didn’t come out with the start I would have liked,” Holmberg said. “We weren’t winning the races for the puck and when we did get there at the same time, we weren’t winning the battle for the puck. We started running around in our own zone.
“Give Guelph credit. They’re a very good team and they do those things very well … but we knew that. I know we can skate with them, so it’s a bit surprising that we came out a little bit flat. We’ve been excited and pumped for this game for a while. It was an important game in terms of position in the standings. The bounce-back after that (start) was good. We didn’t lie down and quit, but I can’t figure out right now (why we started slowly).”
A power-play goal by Danielle Girard cut Guelph’s lead to 2-1 early in the second period, and the score stayed that way until the Gryphons got a penalty with a little more than two minutes left in the third period.
Queen’s called time out and pulled goaltender Caitlyn Lahonen to skate 6-on-4.
“At that point we were just hoping to send it into OT,” Holmberg said. “We knew we could out-number them down low, so if we got the puck low and to the net, we should be out-numbering them in terms of battles for the puck.
“It bounced a whole bunch of different ways but not the way we wanted it.”
The down side of pulling the goaltender with the other team a player short is the shorthanded team can ice the puck without consequence. Guelph sealed the win with a 150-foot empty-net tally by Christine Grant with 20 seconds left to play.
The Gaels managed just one goal in two games against Gryphons goaltender Stephanie Nehring this year. She made 24 saves Friday as Guelph outshot the home team 28-25.
Queen’s resumes play Saturday night at the Memorial Centre, where the Brock Badgers will visit for a 7:30 game.
•
For the second time this year, Samuel Labrecque rained on the parade of the Queen’s men’s hockey team.
On opening night his goal with 14 seconds left in the game gave the McGill Redmen a 4-3 victory over the Gaels. Friday night in Montreal, he scored three times to lead the No. 8-ranked Redmen to a 4-1 win.
It was the seventh loss in the last eight games for Queen’s, now 9-12-1.
The Gaels emerged from the first period with no reward for outshooting the home team 12-4. McGill’s Max LeSieur scored just 30 seconds into the second period and Labrecque scored his goals in the space of a little less than eight minutes in the latter part of the period to put the Redmen in command.
Brett Foy scored Queen’s only goal with three and a half minutes left in the game, spoiling the shutout bid of McGill’s Jacob Gervais-Chouinard, who made 30 saves.
The Gaels return to play Tuesday, when they will host Ontario Tech at the Memorial Centre at 7:30 p.m.
