ELMIRA, Ont. – In a game no team at the U SPORTS National Championship tournament wants to be playing in, the UBC Thunderbirds motivated themselves to a hard-earned 2-0 win over the Ottawa GeeGees Saturday afternoon to advance to Sunday's consolation final where the 'Birds will take on the host Waterloo Warriors.
Elise Hugens stopped 15 shots to earn her fourth career national tournament shutout, the fifth-year goaltender outduelling Ottawa's Clara Genier in a game where both netminders came to play.
The only one of UBC's 39 shots to get past Genier came off the stick of Ashton Thorpe on the power play late in the second period while Jacquelyn Fleming found the empty net in the final minute of the third to advance the 'Birds to the fifth-place game for a third consecutive year.
"It's hard to come back from a game being decided in the shootout, it's really tough," said UBC head coach, Graham Thomas, whose team fell to the Montreal Carabins less than 24 hours earlier in a quarter-final heartbreaker. "Big motivators were playing for our seniors, playing for Canada West, for our school and playing against a team we don't get to see. And now we get an opportunity to play on the very last day and another day together."
Similar to Friday's quarter-final, the T-Birds were forced to the kill three times in the opening period, but it was UBC which had the better opportunities, managing a couple shorthanded rushes, but both ending in Genier saves.
The 'Birds earned their first power play of the contest late in the opening period, but unable to capitalize, the game remained scoreless well into the second.
Hugens made one of her best saves of the afternoon just past the halfway point of the middle frame, denying Alex with the glove.
UBC finally got the icebreaker with just under five minutes remaining in the second. Presley Zinger skated the puck deep into Ottawa's zone on the power play and fed it up high to Thorpe whose low shot found its way through traffic and past Genier.
The T-Birds held on to the tenuous lead the rest of the way, Ottawa eventually putting Genier on the bench for the extra attacker with just over two minutes remaining. But Fleming launched the puck from inside her own zone, sending it the length of the ice and into the empty cage to clinch the win.
Having secured UBC's first program victory over the GeeGees in their first ever meeting at the national championship, the T-Birds will get the opportunity to repeat the feat in Sunday's consolation final, set to battle the Warriors who will have the hometown crowd behind them.
"This team's prepared for us thinking we were going to be playing them to start the tournament, it's going to be a tough game," said Thomas. "It's another great program with a lot of seniors, it'll be an emotional last game for both teams. They've got four or five high end players, a great goalie too. It's an early morning but we'll find a way to rally the group and play for all those same reasons again."
Puck drop for Sunday's consolation final is set for 8:00 a.m. ET/5:00 a.m. PT at Elmira's Woolwich Memorial Centre. The game will be streamed live on CBC Gem, cbcsports.ca and CBC Sports' YouTube channel.
