Huskies open second half with win

by Eoin Colquhoun, U of Lethbridge Sports Info

LETHBRIDGE, AB - The University of Lethbridge Pronghorns and the University of Saskatchewan Huskies opened the second semester of Canada West Women’s hockey action and it was the Huskies that walked away with a 3-2 victory over the Horns.

The weekend series is being held while the rest of the conference is still on semester break as the teams are making up for October 30 and 31st games that were postponed due to H1N1 concerns.

The Horns’ were the first to the scoreboard at 9:19 of the opening frame while on the power play as senior captain Kendal Tremblay wired a shot from the point that was tipped on the way to the net by Rochelle Radke (Bashaw, AB, 2nd). The Huskies erased the early deficit four minutes later when a goal mouth scramble lead to a fortunate bounce off the back of Shaye Christiansen’s (Canwood, SK, 5th) skate and redirected past Horns goalie Kailey McMaster (Kenora, ON, 5th).

The Huskies took the lead in the waning moments of the first on the power play as Breanne George (Saskatoon, SK, 3rd) deflected a point shot and fooled McMaster to put the Huskies up 2-1 heading into the first intermission. The Huskies carried the majority of the play, outshooting the Horns 13-5 in the first.

Neither team could find the back of the net in the second period but Horns forward Dayna Janzen (Sherwood Park, AB, 3rd) had a golden opportunity to knot the game up at two apiece. Janzen was sent in alone on Huskies goaltender Vanessa Frederick (Saskatoon, SK, 4th) but was unable to get a clean shot away when a Huskies defender got back into the play and forced the bad shot. The Horns outshot the Huskies by a slim 7-6 margin in the middle stanza.

George gave her team a much needed insurance marker with her second power play marker at the 9:03 mark of the third period as she pushed her way out from behind the Horns’ net and slipped the puck between the legs of McMaster. The Horns’ brought the margin down to one goal when leading goal scorer Brittney Kaye (Saskatoon, SK, 2nd) scored her fifth of the year from a near impossible angle that beat Frederick to the short side. With the goalie pulled the Horns had two glorious chances to send the game to overtime but were unable to capitalize as the Huskies opened 2010 with a victory.

The loss drops the Horns to 3-6-2 on the campaign and still has them three points back of UBC for the final playoff spot. The Huskies move to 7-3-3 and three points back of Manitoba for second place. The teams will renew acquaintances on Sunday as they wrap up the series at Nicholas Sheran Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. MST.