Antigonish, NS – The Saint Mary's Huskies skated to a 3-2 win in overtime over the StFX X-Women Saturday afternoon at the Keating Centre auxiliary arena. The victory avenged a 2-0 X-Women shutout in Halifax the evening before.
Sophmore defense Carly Baker (Newmarket, ON) was the overtime hero, scoring 3:37 into the extra frame, from Mary Worndl (Kitchener, ON) and Hannah Askin (Waterloo, ON) while on the power play.
The teams exchanged first period and second period goals and were held scoreless in the third period to set up the extra frame.
It was the home team X-Women who got on the board first in the game as Santana Gravelle (Lumsden, SK) tallied 4:33 into the first period. Jenna MacDonald (Osgoode, ON) and Kate Gotaas (Sherwood Park, AB) set up the play.
The Huskies responded at 8:45 with a goal from veteran fifth year forward Laura Polak (Bedford, NS), from Baker.
Shots favored the Huskies 12-9 in the opening period.
The Huskies took a 2-1 lead as Laura Horwood (Grandfalls-Windsor, NL) scored just over five minutes into the second period. Freshman forward Caitlin Pejkovic (Sherwood Park, AB) picked up a helper on the play.
StFX rookie defense Julia Schmitt (Windsor, NS) connected with Becky Higgs (Goderich, ON) to set up the X-Women's second goal of the game at 15:57 of the second. The X-Women outshot the Huskies 10-5 in the middle frame.
The third period brought no further scoring as the Huskies outshot the home team 9-6. They also held a 4-2 shot advantage in the overtime period and were 32-27 overall in the game.
Ashley Forler (Kitchener, ON) picked up the win in the SMU net with 25 saves. Freshman netminder Cassidy McEwan (Lloydminster, AB) took the loss for the X-Women.
Both teams continue pre-season exhibition play with games against out-of-conference opponents on Thursday, September 28th. The Huskies will host Western at 7pm at the Halifax Forum, while the X-Women hit the road for a trio of games in Ontario, their first coming against Guelph in Clinton, ON. StFX will then travel to Waterloo and Toronto on Sept. 29th and 30th.