Antigonish, NS – In a clash of nationally ranked teams, the No. 6 StFX X-Women defeated the No. 3 Saint Mary's Huskies 2-1 in a tight overtime encounter on Saturday evening at the Charles V. Keating Centre.
Veteran fifth year forward and X-Women captain Daley Oddy (Cranbrook, BC) was the overtime hero as she scored 4:38 in on the power play.
The X-Women came out flying and scored the first goal of the game 46 seconds into the game. StFX's Sarah Bujold (Riverview, NB) opened the scoring with the assists going to her linemates Oddy and Emmerson Elliott (Aurora, ON). StFX's top line entered the Huskies' zone with momentum and Bujold put a great shot past netminder Rebecca Clark (Keswick, ON).
The experienced Saint Mary's team remained calm and increasingly took control of the game. The Huskies well-balanced attack, led by the line of Laura Polak (Bedford, NS), Breanna Lanceleve (Middle Sackville, NS) and Nicole Blanche (Dunville, NL) created a number of scoring opportunities.
The Huskies inevitably tied the game 1:47 into the second period when Blanche fired a superb wrist shot into the top corner and beat X goalie Carley Mulnar (London, ON) high on the blocker side.
The Huskies continued to dominate the play and after two periods of play the shots were 24-10 for SMU; however, Molnar did not look troubled by the numerous Huskies' shots on goal.
The third period saw both teams go in search of the go-ahead goal with StFX using their speed and good work along the boards to create numerous goal scoring chances. Clark often had to rely on her quick glove hand to keep the score level.
The first period of 4-on-4 overtime saw great back and forth action, and it was an extra burst of speed by the last season's U SPORTS Player of the Year, Sarah Bujold, that caused Kiana Wilkinson (Prince George, BC) to take a tripping penalty as Bujold came closing in on the Saint Mary's net.
The StFX power play quickly went to work with Oddy, Bujold, Santana Gravelle (Lumsden, SK) and Lindsay Donovan (Miramachi, NB) passing the puck superbly. The game winning goal was a skillful tip by Oddy on a great point shot by Donovan. The second assist went to Bujold who made a nice pass to Donovan at the blue line.
The Subway Player of the Game was StFX's Daley Oddy. Molnar posted 29 saves in the StFX net for the win as the Huskies held a slight 30-27 shot advantage.
Next on the AUS scheduled sees StFX (5-0-1) travel to Moncton on Friday evening, November 3rd. Saint Mary's (5-0-1) host St. Thomas, also on Friday evening.
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Courtesy Bart Sears, StFX Athletics Communications