The St. Thomas University women’s hockey team had two successful home games Nov. 2 and 3, with wins against the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers and the Saint Mary’s University Huskies.
The win over the Huskies put the Tommies in first place in the Atlantic University Sport standings.
On Nov. 2, the Tommies started out strong against UPEI with Florence Awde scoring her first goal of the season, and Lauren Legault scoring minutes later, making the score 2-0.
The Tommies kept the Panthers at bay until they scored their first goal in the last minute of the first period.
Legault scored again a minute into the second period. Tommies’ captain Emily Oleksuk scored halfway through the period on a power play making the score 4-1.
The third period saw little action from both teams until the Panthers scored their second goal, making the final 4-2 for the Tommies.
Awde was impressed with herself and her team’s performance.
“I think we did a good job of coming out right off the bat with energy and it felt good just to carry that on,” said Awde.
In their second game on Nov. 3, the Tommies started out strong in their game against SMU with Lauren Henman scoring just three minutes into the game.
The rest of the game saw a lot of penalties for both teams. The back and forth continued and a lot of attempts were made on the Tommies’ net, but goalie Abby Clarke was able to stop them.
With one minute left in the game, SMU called a 30-second time-out and pulled their goalie in an attempt to tie up the game with extra offensive players. Henman seized the opportunity, scoring from across the ice on an empty net with seconds left in the game.
This gave the Tommies a shutout win of 2-0.
Head coach Peter Murphy was impressed with Clarke’s goalkeeping.
“She’s been having a good year for us and she’s given us chances to win every game,” said Murphy.
“The girls are really confident with her in net.”
He was impressed with the team despite the roughness of the game.
“[SMU] plays a physical game, so it’s tough. Especially with some of our girls that maybe aren’t as big in stature,” said Murphy.
“But our small kids still go into corners and they still battle hard, so it’s not like it’s a huge issue.”
