VANCOUVER – Hayley Wickenheiser scored twice to lead the No. 3 Calgary Dinos to a 7-0 shutout of the host UBC Thunderbirds in Canada West women's hockey action on Friday night at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
“I thought we showed a lot of things that we had been working on in practice and building towards over the past few months so I was kind of happy with some of the things that I saw and maybe the scoreboard didn't reflect that but there are some things to build on,” remarked UBC head coach Jen Rawson after the game. “We are taking some small steps so I think that's positive and we had some good penalty killing, despite taking too many penalties.”
UBC's best opportunity to score came in the first period when the team was down a goal.
Rebecca Unrau (1st, Humboldt, SK) just missed knocking home a rebound that came off the goalpost behind Calgary goalie Jennifer Mallard, who made 13 saves for her first Canada West shutout.
“I thought Rebecca had a really good game; she had a lot of offensive chances for us,” said Rawson.
Tatiana Rafter (2nd, Winnipeg, MB) also a had a good chance in the third period when she skated through the neutral zone, and then past two Calgary defenders before her shot was stopped by Mallard.
Kira Sonnenberg notched the game-winning goal to open the scoring, followed by a pair from Wickenheiser.
Erika Mitschke, Iya Gavrilova, Alex Gowie and Tanya Morgan added the other markers for the Dinos.
Stephanie Ramsay added four assists for Calgary.
Sonnenberg's goal came at 7:24 in the first period. Tanya Morgan found Sonnenberg with a pass from behind the UBC net. A similar play took place on Calgary's second marker, with Wickenheiser converting on a pass from Gavrilova.
The backbreaking goal for UBC came at 19:33 of the first period as Wickenheiser once again found the net for Calgary, this time on a power play.
The Dinos would convert four times on 11 power plays in the game.
Carly Butcher (1st, Bellingham, WA) stopped 28 of 35 shots from the Dinos.
With the loss, UBC's record falls to 1-14-2, while Calgary improves to 13-4-0 and moves into sole possession of second place in the Canada West conference standings.
The two teams will face off again on Saturday night in Vancouver, with a start time of 7 p.m. Pacific at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
Rawson is looking for a better performance on special teams from her players in Saturday's rematch.
“We have to really make adjustments to our power play,” said Rawson. “We really have to take advantage of those opportunities.”
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