Women’s Hockey: Hard Work Pays Off

Stingers Get Late Power Play Goal to Win 1-0 Over Carleton

SportsJordan Stoopler — Published January 24, 2016 | Updated January 25, 2016 at 2:51am

The Stingers dominated the game from start to finish, outshooting the opposition by a 32-10 margin.

“Scoring the goal to win the game was awesome,” said a relieved Claudia Dubois after the game. “We waited for this goal all game long.”

Dubois took advantage of a holding penalty to Carleton defender Jennifer Semkowski to break the stalemate. Captain Erica Porter fired a pass to Dubois, and the Stingers forward beat Ravens goaltender Katelyn Steele with a shot that came from just inside the faceoff circle.

“That power play opportunity was huge and it was great that our girls were able to execute,” said head coach Julie Chu.

The goal was scored after a lengthy delay because of an incident involving one of the referees. While two opposing players were battling for the puck along the centre ice boards, the official tripped over one of the player’s sticks, hitting her head hard against the ice.

She lay unconscious for a few moments while medical staff tended to her. She would later be boarded off and taken to hospital.

The Stingers tried to remain focused throughout the 30 minute delay.

“Our coach called us over and told us to keep being focused and doing what we are doing,” said Stinger goaltender Briar Bache. “As a team, we just wanted to focus on what we had done right up until that point and just finish off the five minutes harder than we had the rest of the game.”

“You almost have to allow the players to be on the bench and keep it light,” said Chu. “The moment we get a chance to then start up again, as the referee was being taken off the ice, we knew we had to refocus and recheck in. We went back to just focusing on the little keys that we needed to do.”

Goaltender Briar Bache, taking over from injured starter Katherine Purchase, was solid in goal, despite only facing 10 shots in the game. Bache was confident in her ability to remain focused throughout the game, despite the lack of shots faced.

“Those games are definitely tougher to play when the puck is not in your zone all that often,” Bache explained.

“Briar made some key saves when she needed to,” Chu said. “That was really important for her to be mentally engaged in a game when she may not be seeing as many pucks on a consistent basis. Whoever gets the nod on any given night, it’s time for them to go and do the best they can.”

The victory improves the Stingers record to 5-8-2 and gives them two consecutive victories for the first time since the opening two games of the season. Although both wins have come against the last-place Ravens, Bache is hopeful that her team will continue to succeed down the stretch.

“The momentum is definitely in our favour,” said Bache. “In both games, we all did very good things. We just have to continue doing the things that we did well and build off of that into the next game.”

The Stingers next game is on Friday night in Ottawa against the Ottawa Gee-Gees at 7 p.m.