VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds lost a 4-3 shootout thriller to their Canada West rival Mount Royal Cougars Saturday afternoon at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
The defending U SPORTS national champion Cougars (7-3) had their four-game win streak snapped by the T-Birds on Friday night, but exacted a measure of revenge by ending UBC's nine-game win streak less than 24 hours later.
Each side showed why they are two of the best teams in the country in a tight-checking, back-and-forth battle. The T-Birds earned special teams opportunities, but were unable to capitalize, going 1-for-7 on the powerplay.
"We were just being a little bit too perimeter, too fancy and didn't have an attack mindset on the powerplay," said UBC head coach
Graham Thomas. "Our powerplay needs to be better for sure."
Mount Royal struck first at the 17:15 mark of the first period, Ava Metzger tipped a Jori Hansen-Young shot past T-Birds goalie
Elise Hugens on the powerplay. UBC answered just 18 seconds later when the T-Birds' penalized player,
Madisyn Wiebe redeemed herself by taking a breakaway pass from teammate
Sophia Gaskell, potting her seventh of the season to tie the game up 1-1.
A T-Birds turnover led to a clear-cut breakaway for Cougars' leading scorer Athena Hauck who made no mistake sniping a low-blocker goal past Hugens to give her team the 2-1 lead going into the first intermission.
Mackenzie Kordic tied the game once again with UBC's lone power play goal of the afternoon, deflecting a cross-crease pass behind Cougars goalie Kaitlyn Ross just under four minutes into the second.
The punch, counterpunch affair continued as the Cougars would retake the lead just 65 seconds later. Fourth-Year defender Emma Bergesen led a 2-on-1 rush with teammate Allee Gerrard who scored her team-best sixth goal of the season.
Just past the halfway point of a high-flying second period, UBC answered back. Third-year defender
Sophia Gaskell netted her fourth goal of the season on a powerful point-shot, tying the game 3-3.
Despite outshooting their opponents 17-0 in the third-period, UBC was unable to solve Cougars Ross again as she made her best save of the night on a 2-on-1 opportunity in the final seconds of overtime, stonewalling
Chanreet Bassi.
In the shootout, neither team was able to score on any of their first three attempts. The Cougars' fourth shooter, fifth-year Breanne Trotter, scored the winner by faking a shot and tucking a backhand goal five-hole past Hugens.
The 4-3 loss is UBC's first home-ice defeat since February 18th, 2022 snapping a streak of 21 consecutive home victories. However, UBC still remains undefeated in regulation this season, and is comfortably atop the Canada West standings with 22 points heading into their bye week.
"It's been a great 12 games, we got to be proud and happy about it, but not complacent," added Thomas. "Keep building. That's got to be our mindset, a growth mindset."
After their bye week, UBC will head to Saskatoon for a tough weekend series against the University of Saskatchewan Huskies (7-2-1-0) on November 17th and 18th.
