Edmonton, AB - A second period flurry of goals was unfortunately not enough for the UBC Thunderbirds women's hockey, losing 6-3 in a high-scoring affair against the Alberta Pandas in Edmonton Friday night. The defeat snaps the Thunderbirds six game winning streak.
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The 'Birds would tally three goals in the second period to narrow Alberta's discouraging lead to only one, with
Christi Capozzi striking gold first to get the rollercoaster ride going. Then, consecutive singles from
Stephanie Schaupmeyer and
Haneet Parhar brought UBC within reach of the Pandas, making it 4-3. Despite this ray of hope the game-ready opponents snatched two more goals while the T-Birds lacked a team rhythm and wrestled with penalty trouble. It simply wasn't enough for a comeback.
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"We got outworked and outplayed. We weren't prepared," said Thunderbirds head coach
Graham Thomas. "Alberta came out hard and played for a whole 60 minutes, while we just played a few shifts here and there."Â
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"We can't dwell on it. We need to prepare for tomorrow and learn the lesson that we can't just pull on our jersey because of our record and the way we've been playing and expect to win. We have to put the work in, be disciplined, use each other, and play a much better team game," Thomas added.
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In light of his overall disappointment, coach Thomas did make note of the strong performances put on by
Jenna Carpenter-Boesch,
Haneet Parhar,
Christi Capozzi, and
Emily O'Neill, whose hard work clearly did not go unseen.
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After having contained the puck to the Thunderbirds' zone from the opening face-off, the Pandas hit the scoreboard first with Ashley Warren opening the scoring eight minutes into the first period. Dominating control, they tallied another goal with under five minutes remaining in the period to increase their lead to 2-0.
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On a major breakaway, Alberta nearly added another but UBC netminder
Danielle Dube shut the door with a remarkable stop to keep the Pandas ahead only by two.
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By the end of that period shots were 14-3 in favour of Alberta as the 'Birds seemed unable to escape their own zone. 2-0 is how it would look after 20 minutes.
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Despite the T-Birds' rush of goals in the second period, the Pandas maintained the upper hand throughout and would run away with a 6-3 win.
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With the loss UBC's record drops to 16-4-1, while Alberta improves to 13-5-3.
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By the end of the game shots were an astonishing 35-16 in favour of Alberta.
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Dube suffered the loss in net making 29 saves on 34 shots over the evening. Alberta's Lindsey Post recorded the win, having stopped 13 of 16 shots.
UBC and Alberta face off again tomorrow for the second game of the two-game weekend series at 5:00 pm (PST).
