Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
OLDS – Another game, another program record.
Five days after Shyla Jans became the MacEwan Griffins' career goals leader, it was the team's turn to establish a new high watermark on Thursday night.
With a 3-1 win over the Olds College Broncos, the Griffins stretched their winning streak to 11 in a row to break the record for the most consecutive victories in the program's 20-year history.
"Huge for us," said head coach Lindsay McAlpine of the streak, which pushes their Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference-leading record to 18-3-0-0. "We come into Saturday with a chance to clinch first here in our home rink."
The Griffins' last loss was 82 days ago when they fell 3-1 to the NAIT Ooks on Nov. 16. They've since recorded weekend sweeps of (in chronological order): SAIT, Olds, Red Deer College, NAIT and SAIT with a chance to do the same to Olds again when they meet again on Saturday (6 p.m., Downtown Community Arena).
"I think that we're completely playing as a team and buying into that idea," said McAlpine of the streak. "There's no individual success taking over. Everything's kind of team driven. We're playing from our D zone out like we always do, but we're finally capitalizing. That's been critical for us."
On Thursday night, that capitalization came on a three-goal outburst in the final five minutes of the first period that put the game out of reach.
Shyla Kirwer opened the scoring 15:15 into the game, roofing a loose puck over the shoulder of goalie Lexi Bruce after linemates Mackenzie Dachuk and Karlie Bell did a nice job working the puck down low.
Less than two minutes later, Jans tipped home Carley Jewell's point blast after Jill MacWilliam had gained the zone with speed, adding to her program career goals lead (now up to 37).
Then Bell put the finishing touch on a great opening frame for the Griffins when she blocked a shot at her own blueline and steamed in alone on a breakaway, beating Bruce glove side with two seconds left in the period.
"We sometimes tend to start a little slow in the Olds rink on Thursday nights and we actually started really, really well tonight," said McAlpine. "I think we're finally just rewarded for some really good opportunities on net."
Even better, it was about who scored. Both Kirwer and Bell sat out of the lineup in MacEwan's last game at SAIT on Saturday, only to return with fire in their bellies at the opportunity to play in the next one.
"They played lights out for us in the defensive zone and arguably won us the game in the offensive end as well," said McAlpine. "It's everything you look for as a coach and they did exactly that. You could just see, too; it fired up our entire bench."
Olds switched goalies after the first period and backup Victoria Eilers was solid the rest of the way, turning aside 29 Griffins' shots in the final 40 minutes.
"I'm going to give credit to Olds," said McAlpine. "They never seemed to fully deflate. I was hoping coming into the second we had an opportunity to go up by four and see how they responded, but they pushed back hard. They changed their goalie after the first period and she played outstanding the rest of the game."
Natalie Bender was equal to the task in the MacEwan net, though, making 20 saves. Kassy Gaudette scored 4:00 into the third period to ruin her shutout bid.
