By Glenn MacDonald, The Chronicle-Herald

Feb 24, 2008 - Two old foes will reacquaint with each other in today’s final of the AUS women’s hockey championship.

From 2001-2005, the Saint Mary’s Huskies and the St. Francis Xavier X-Women met in the championship game for conference supremacy. StFX won three of those matchups en route to its six AUS banners overall while SMU took two.

The Huskies and X-Women will meet again this afternoon (3 p.m.) at Alumni Arena after each team earned semifinal wins on Saturday.

StFX, undefeated in regular season play, blanked the Dalhousie Tigers 5-0 in the early semifinal while host SMU edged the Moncton Aigles Bleues 3-2.

"We are out for a little revenge," Huskies forward Kori Cheverie said. "We haven’t beaten St. StFX yet but we’re ready for tomorrow. Home ice will be an advantage for us."

X-Women 5, Tigers 0 — StFX made it 22 straight wins.

Conference MVP Brayden Ferguson tallied twice, while Lindsay Brown and rookies Carolyn Campbell and Catie Gavin added single markers for the X-Women, who fired 51 shots on Dal goalie Kristen Ladouceur.

"We had to bring the work ethic today," said Gavin, an Antigonish native who scored on a third-period breakaway. "We didn’t want to give them any scoring chances."

Katie Harvieux made 15 saves for the shutout. She wasn’t tested often but when there was a Dalhousie scoring chance she was there to deny it. Her best save came late in the second when she stretched out with her glove to stop the Tigers’ Kim Carcary point blank.

It was a valiant effort by the Tigers, who were coming off an exhausting 3-2 double-overtime win over St. Thomas in their quarter-final Friday night.

The game didn’t get over until after midnight and many of the players didn’t get to sleep until 2 a.m. Fatigued and up against a Goliath in StFX, the odds were stacked against Dal.

"I’m very proud of this team," said Carcary, a fourth-year forward from Newmarket, Ont. "We were pretty tired. It took us a bit to get going and when we did, we were already down 3-0. It was rain on our parade. But we fought ’til the end. We didn’t have much turnaround time after playing five periods and we still gave it our all."

The score was closer than it should have been thanks mainly to the play of Ladouceur, who was playing in her final university game.

"She’s amazing, just amazing," said Carcary, who will return for a fifth season. "Her effort doesn’t reflect in the score at all. It would have been a totally different game if it wasn’t for her."

Huskies 3, Aigles Bleues 2 — In a rematch of a 2007 semifinal, it was payback for the host side.

Cheverie opened the scoring in the first and added two assists to pace SMU over the defending conference champs.

"We were disappointed last year; that was in the back of our minds," said Cheverie, a third-year winger. "We wanted to prove to them we could beat them in an important game."

Courtney Schriver and Rebecca Mullowney also scored for SMU. Kristine Labrie notched both goals for Moncton.

There was no love lost between the teams. After the final whistle, a melee in front of the SMU goal led to numerous punches thrown from both teams. Moncton rookie blue-liner Josiane Bisaillion was assessed a match penalty for apparently hitting an official.