KINGSTON, Ont. (Feb. 23, 2024) - Queen's Women's Hockey fell 2-1 in double overtime to the Toronto Varsity Blues of Game 2 of their OUA McCaw Cup Playoffs quarterfinals series Friday night at Memorial Centre.

After taking Game 1 Wednesday night, the loss for the Gaels sets up a deciding Game 3 on Sunday in Toronto, Ont.

Abby Howland scored the winner for Toronto just one minute into the second overtime frame after two scoreless periods. Toronto opened the scoring in the first period on a goal by Nikki McDonald before Queen's evened the score early in the second period, when Mikayla Cranney (Aurora, Ont.) found the back of the net from a nice pass down low by Scout Watkins Southward (Kingston, Ont.). The assist was Watkins Southward's third point of the post-season.

"We were happy to get that first game and we knew tonight was going to be a battle," said Queen's Women's Hockey Head Coach Morgan McHaffie. "We talked a lot about winning the puck battles, keeping possession, expecting them to come hard. Their season was on the line and we knew they were going to come out with desperation. I thought we competed and played a good game tonight, gave ourselves a chance to win."

Looking ahead to Sunday's deciding Game 3, McHaffie said the team has learned a lot from the regular season and will use that with their season on the line.

"We talk a lot about peaking at the right time. As much as we maybe didn't finish as high in the standings as we would have liked, we learned a lot during those games that we lost. We talked about trusting the process, sticking to our game plan, and knowing that we've beat them before in their barn so we can absolutely do it again." 

Game 3 of the Gaels' quarterfinal series will go Sunday at 4 p.m. at Varsity Arena in Toronto. Catch all the action on OUA.tv.