Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

SASKATOON, Sask. – Unable to bury their chances, the Griffins women's hockey team's strong effort was undermined by untimely defensive errors in a 5-2 loss at the Saskatchewan Huskies on Friday night.

MacEwan outshot (25-17) and outplayed the homestanding Dogs, but lost some of the defensive details, especially in allowing four unanswered goals against in a 19-minute stretch between the second and third periods. 

"For the majority of the game, I thought we dictated the pace of the game and played physical," said MacEwan interim head coach Chris Leeming. "We had a lot of scoring chances, we just didn't end up burying them. 

"The chances they got, we had some D zone inefficiencies and breakdowns and they capitalized. We didn't. That was the big difference in the game."

With the result, the Griffins fall to 3-7-1, while the Huskies improved to 6-3-2.

After Saskatchewan's Kelsey Hall opened the scoring on the powerplay 6:44 into the game, MacEwan's Rebecca Thiessen responded with the first goal of her Canada West career to tie it 1-1 after 20 minutes.

Then the wheels fell off on the scoreboard for the Griffins as the Huskies put the game out of reach with four-straight goals by Kennedy Brown, Paris Oleksyn, Kate Ball and Kendra Zuchotzki.

Joie Simon scored a short-handed tally with 1:05 left, but it was too little, too late for MacEwan.

"At the offensive end of the rink, we need to make sure we bury our opportunities," said Leeming. "It was 1-1 at one point and then they got four unanswered goals. We scored a late short-handed goal to make it 5-2, but it's just being intentional, committed and disciplined, and taking pride and prioritizing our D zone and our habits and details. That's kind of where it fell apart today."

The Griffins will get another crack at the Huskies on Saturday (6 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).