Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – A sluggish first 40 minutes was interrupted by one of the Griffins' best periods of the year in the third before a seeing-eye point shot beat them in overtime and sealed their Saturday fate – a 2-1 loss to the Trinity Western Spartans in Canada West women's hockey action.
The Griffins outshot the Spartans 30-19 and deserved a better fate overall, but the visitors capitalized on their limited opportunities as the teams skated to a weekend split.
"It was just a tough one," said captain Shyla Kirwer of TWU's winning goal, 34 seconds into the extra session off the stick of Jaidia Pisani from the point. "They've got a good shooter on the wall there and she just found it through the traffic."
MacEwan goaltender Brianna Sank argued with officials she was interfered with on the goal after a Spartans player appeared to possibly make contact with her at the top of the crease, but to no avail.
The Griffins pick up a point with the result and move to 3-6-1 on the season, while the Spartans are back to .500 at 5-5-0.
MacEwan was chasing the Spartans all game after they allowed an early short-handed goal to Canada West leading scorer Amy Potomak, who jumped on a turnover inside the MacEwan blueline and wired one past Sank 2:51 into the contest.
The score stayed 1-0 for most of the night until Kirwer finally evened the affair with 9:04 remaining. Alle Isley won a battle in the corner and sent a beautiful pass to her in the slot to one-time past Spartans netminder Mabel Maltais.
W��| GOAL!@MacEwanHockey captain Shyla Kirwer buries a great one-time pass from Allee Isley, tying it 1-1 with the @TWUSpartans with 9:04 left in the third period.@CanadaWest #GriffNation pic.twitter.com/ZTVb76x1It
— MacEwan Griffins (@MacEwanGriffins) November 5, 2022
"I was just coming on the ice and I saw Allee had the puck in the corner," said Kirwer. "I was just screaming for it the whole way. She just made the quick pass and beat both their D. It was pretty nice to just put it in."
The way the Griffins had 19 of their 30 shots in the third period as they came out with a fire that only come from one of those intermission "talks."
"We had a pretty honest conversation in between the second and the third and I thought they responded to it," said interim head coach Chris Leeming.
"The broken record of consistency in messages coming from the coaching staff, that's where we had issues with again today. Compared to yesterday, it just wasn't a full 60.
"The third period, I think we doubled our shot totals and put them on their heels with the pressure we applied. That's the way we can play. If we play that way for 60 minutes, we're a pretty good team."
Unfortunately, they only played that way for about a third of Saturday's game and were fairly fortunate not to be trailing more than 1-0 entering the final frame. Sank made some big early saves, though, to keep them in it, including a weird one on the doorstep that Olivia Leier tried to bat out of the air – one of her 17 saves.
"She's been a rock for us," said Leeming. "She gives us some confidence and is a calming presence.
"It's nice when we get some goaltending, but it's a holistic approach. We need to put some pucks in the back of the net. We generated a lot of shots in the third, but a lot of them were without traffic, so their goalie saw a lot of them pretty cleanly there."
Still, Maltais had a solid night, making a few big stops in the third period, including robbing Claire Hobbs on a rebound. The Edmontonian finished with 29 saves.
The Griffins will travel to Saskatoon next weekend for matches against the Saskatchewan Huskies.
