KINGSTON, Ont. (October 12th, 2018) – The Queen's Gaels (1-0-0-0) defeated the Laurentian Voyageurs (0-0-1-0) In the Gaels home opener on Friday night in OUA women's hockey action.
GAME FLOW
The Gaels got off to a hot start opening the scoring with a nice forehand-backhand move from second-year Whitby Ontario native
Taylor Hicks only moments into the game. Queen's added to the advantage on the power play 4:38 into the first on a goal scored by Cornell transfer
Caroline DeBruin, which came off a nice assist from
Hailey Wilson. The Gaels made the score 3-0 when
Kaylie Dennis created a turnover just inside the Laurentian blueline and ripped a top-shelf wrister past Voyageurs goaltender Shanna Dolighan.
Queen's got off to another good start in the second as just past the five-minute mark
Hailey Wilson got her second point of the night (and first goal of the OUA season) by skating through all five Laurentian players before beating the netminder high on the glove hand side.
Laurentian would respond late in the period on a rebound goal from forward Abbey Caldwell, who with the goal, has already matched her goals total from last year. With forty minutes played, the Gaels held a three-goal lead with the score at 4 to 1.
It was a relatively slow start to the third period for both sides, other than a couple of good odd-man rush chances for the Gaels and a powerplay chance for Laurentian. In the later stages of the third, continued penalty troubles for the Gaels lead to a powerplay goal for Laurentian courtesy of a point shot from defender Julia Giannitsopoulos, which made the score 4-2. The Voyageurs pulled their goaltender for the last minute and a half of the game in an attempt to cut the advantage in half but were unable to score, and the Gaels walked away with a 4-2 victory.
Overall, the Gaels will be happy to have earned all three points in the standings but probably less pleased with the way that they let Laurentian back into the game over the last 40 minutes.
BY THE NUMBERS
2 – A two-point night (1G, 1A) for Gaels forward
Hailey Wilson
16 – Saves by Gaels goaltender
Makenzy Arsenault
WILSON'S MUST SEE MOMENT
FINAL SAY
Head Coach
Matt Holmberg spoke about not letting his team get complacent despite winning 4-2: "As soon as we got up 3-0 some bad habits started to creep in and Laurentian seemed to find their legs and get into the game. Laurentian outworked us for long stretches and we're lucky that we have the skill and goaltending we do on the team."
UP NEXT
The Gaels take on the Nipissing Lakers tomorrow night at Kingston Memorial Centre (7:30 PM) and on OUA TV.
