Impressive win over Ooks

The battle of the top two teams in ACAC women’s hockey wasn’t much of a battle.

Led by three goals from Taralynn Suzuki, the Cougars trounced the Ooks 7-1 and took over sole possession of first place in the ACAC. The Cougars now sit at 8-3 and have a two-point advantage over NAIT in the fight for first.

The Cougars opened the scoring at the 3:50 mark of the first period as Sukuki netted her first of the night off a scramble in front of Ooks goaltender Jill Diachuk. The goal came just two seconds after NAIT had killed off a Mount Royal powerplay.

Mount Royal would make it a 2-0 game in the final minute of the period when Chrissy Hodgson netter her team-leading ninth goal of the season. The goal game on a five-on four Cougars power play and just five seconds after the team had been on a five-on three advantage.

The first period ended 2-0 Mount Royal, with Cougars holding a 10-6 shot advantage.

The Cougars made it 3-0 early in the second period when Suzuki netted her second of the contest and fifth of the season. After taking a pass from Jocelyn Froehlich, the second-year forward sped into the NAIT zone and fired a puck from the left circle. Diachuk made the initial save but couldn’t control the shot, and Suzuki danced around the Ooks defenders and tapped in her own rebound.

Cougars head coach Scott Rivett was pleased with how his team took control of the game after that goal.

“We’re a team that can play four lines, and we believe we can play with anybody when we have an opportunity to roll four lines and keep everybody engaged,” said Rivett. “We had a lot of chances and controlled a good part of the second period.”

The Cougars had two excellent chances to make take a four goal lead, both coming off the stick of Karlie Martens within a 30-second stretch, but didn’t actually net goal number four until Suzuki completed her hat trick at the 7:37 mark.

Suzuki agreed with her coach’s assessment of the Cougars effort.

“I thought we got on the loose pucks and were in the right positions all game. All the lines were clicking and we got lots of pucks to the net,” said Suzuki.

The Cougars would score two more times before the end of the period. Taylor McLeod scored her second of the season to make it 5-0 and Tanika Dawson contributed her sixth of the year to round out the period with Mount Royal up 6-0 on the scoreboard and 29-16 on the shot clock.

“We capitalized on some powerplay opportunities and I thought we executed fairly well. We were pretty good on transition which gave us opportunities on some odd-man rushes which also generated some scoring opportunities for us,” said Rivett.

The third period saw a large number of penalties called and numerous two and three-player advantages.

The Cougars took a 7-0 lead 11 minutes in when Jade Osadchuk scored on a beautiful redirection of a Emma Lowry pass into an empty NAIT goal.

Down six goals, and with multiple five on three man advantages, the Ooks took the unusual step of pulling their goaltender for an additional attacker. The strategy paid off on NAIT’s only goal of the game, scored by Laura Williams with 1:30 left in the contest.

Final shots in the game favoured the Cougars 43-23. Mount Royal went three for six on the power play while NAIT was one for 11.

The Cougars will now play four games in the next seven nights. After a return game at NAIT Nov. 26, the Cougars will play an exhibition game against the Russian national squad Tuesday, followed by a home and home series with the Red Deer College Queens, Dec. 1 in Red Deer and Dec. 2 at Flames Community Arenas. Game time is 7:30 and will be the last game Mount Royal plays before the semester and holiday break.