Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – In the big picture, the Griffins women's hockey team took a step forward in Saturday's game vs. UBC, even if the result was a 4-1 loss.
They pushed the pace and had stretches where they put lots of heat on the defending Canada West champions.
The devil is in the details, though. The minutiae mattered most as momentary lapses of duty added up to 51 shots against, untimely high-danger chances and a notch in the loss column.
"At the end of the day, and what we just talked about in the dressing room, is it's a matter of consistency of execution," said MacEwan interim head coach Chris Leeming. "There were times we pushed the pace and brought our game to them and then there were times we weren't able to execute breakout passes or coverage, and that's where it really fell apart for us.
"Details and habits are the foundation if we're going to be successful."
With the result, the Griffins fall to 2-6-0 in the Canada West standings, while UBC improves to 6-1-1.
In contrast to Friday's 5-0 loss to UBC where the Griffins went quietly with only 12 shots, they roared out of the gates with a sense of urgency and had the game's first shot.
After weathering a bit of a Thunderbirds' pushback, MacEwan hit the scoreboard first, too.
Amanda Murray jumped on a neutral zone turnover and steamed into the zone, letting a laser go from the top of the left circle and picked the top corner over UBC goaltender Kate Stuart's glove.
"I was actually looking to pass it back to my linemate (Jennifer Andrash), but she yelled at me, 'shoot it on net, shoot it on net' and I was like 'OK,' " said the fifth-year veteran forward. "I was kind of aiming wide side for a rebound and it ended up going in the top corner."
Amanda Murray was dangerous all night for the Griffins, scoring a goal and recording four shots (Joel Kingston photo).
Murray, Andrash and their most frequent linemate Joie Simon combined for 12 of MacEwan's 25 shots in the contest.
"Murrs is someone from Day 1 of me being here, she's brought it every single day," said Leeming. "She's a true competitor and she wants to win more than anybody in that room. And she shows it every single day with her work ethic. She's got that drive and it's starting to rub off on people."
Unfortunately, the Griffins couldn't build upon an early lead after 20 minutes as the visitors struck back in a big way in the second period.
Just 2:41 into the middle frame, Chanreet Bassi flew down the right side on a two-on-one, deking away, and lost the handle on the puck, but it slipped between Brianna Sank's legs.
After some sustained pressure in the zone at 12:59, Kailee Pepper peppered a shot through traffic from the point and Ireland Perrott, on the doorstep, tapped in the rebound.
UBC took a 3-1 lead into the second intermission after Sophia Gaskell sifted a seeing-eye point shot through a bunch of bodies and past Sank on a delayed penalty call at 16:18.
The third period then turned into a UBC shooting gallery as they fired 26 shots in the final 20 minutes alone, scoring just once as Gaskell went around the MacEwan D and then cut across the crease to freeze Sank at 1:47.
Sank finished with 47 saves, which is a new program record in Canada West play, surpassing the 45 saves Natalie Bender had against Alberta last February. Two of her biggest stops came off a pair of first period one-timers from Karine Sandilands.
Brianna Sank made 47 saves to set a new program record (Joel Kingston photo).
UBC's Stuart made 24 saves for the win, her finest stop being a robbery on Shyla Kirwer, who tried to tap in a rebound off a 2-on-1 midway through the first period.
Next up for the Griffins is a pair of home games vs. Trinity Western University Nov. 4-5.
"I think we're getting there," said Murray. "It's just about the consistency and showing our level of game instead of playing into their game plan. We're almost there.
"There were moments where we were outworking them, but we've just got to be consistent throughout the whole 60 minutes."
