Tough road trip for Gaels

Women’s hockey gives up two early leads on weekend

A disappointing weekend on the road for the Queen’s women’s hockey team resulted in the Gaels earning one out of a possible four points.

On Saturday afternoon the Gaels blew a three-goal lead to tie the Waterloo Warriors 3-3. The following day Queen’s gave up another lead against the Wilfred Laurier Golden Hawks and lost 2-1.

Head coach Rob Lalonde said he had mixed emotions over the weekend’s results.

“I was happy with the way we played at times, and at other times disappointed,” he said.

Saturday, the Gaels came out strong, receiving three goals in the first period from Kori Cembal, Victoria Kaufmann and Kelsey Thomson. Thomson added an assist, and together with Becky Conroy they each put up two-point nights.

The momentum shifted when the players returned from the first intermission. The Warriors scored their first goal of the game at the 10:16 point of the second period.

The Warriors began winning battles for the puck and capped off their comeback with two more goals in the third period.

Queen’s goalie Katie Boyd made 32 stops to preserve the tie.

Boyd said she was disappointed with the result.

“We came out strong, played a good first period. We just couldn’t keep up the pace for the rest of the game,” she said.

The Gaels opened the scoring again on Sunday afternoon against the Golden Hawks, as Andrea Leblanc found the net at the 5:29 mark of the first, but the Hawks battled back to tie the score six minutes later.

The Hawks broke the deadlock late in the second when Alicia Martin banged a rebound past Gaels’ goalie Melissa John.

Although Queen’s dominated the play for most of the first half of the game they only managed to direct 11 shots at the Golden Hawks net. John stopped 28 out of 30 shots.

Queen’s sits in fourth place in the OUA standings with a 5-6-3 record.

The Gaels will only play one game this weekend because they’re participating in Gaels Hockey Day Camp today. The camp is run for girls aged 12 to 16, and will feature an on-ice session with Queen’s athletes and coaching staff.

The camp is designed to give girls an idea of what it takes to play hockey at the university level. Gaels Hockey Day will close out when Queen’s takes on the Guelph Gryphons at 7:30 p.m. at the Strathcona Paper Centre in Napanee. As the Gaels prepare for Guelph, who are second in the OUA, Lalonde said he’s looking for certain players to lead by example.

“We have some key players that haven’t been producing,” he said. “Hopefully they can start putting some good games together.” The last time Queen’s faced Guelph, goalie Chelsey Roy stole the game for the Gryphons, but Lalonde said he feels that the Gaels carried the play in that match.

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