By Casey Dulson (ISN)
The eighth-seeded Mount Royal Cougars’ Cinderella run at nationals continues, as MRU
defeated the host fifth-seeded Universite de Montreal Carabins 3-1 on Saturday night to
advance to the program’s first-ever championship finals.
The opening period saw both teams controlling possession throughout the period, but neither team could find the back of the net when they had their chances on the powerplay. The two goalies combined for 16 saves to keep it scoreless.
“The first period, I thought we did a good job. I thought we did. We did a really good job kind of executing on our game plan.” Said Mount Royal head coach Scott Rivett. We played fast. I thought we generated,I thought we controlled a lot of play.
Mount Royal opened the scoring at the 1:25 mark of the second frame as second-year
defenceman Alex Spence scored on the powerplay. The Carabins, after the Cougars goal had all of the momentum in the period, but Cougars third-year goalie Kaitlyn Ross, stood tall in the net.The netminder made two incredible saves on breakaway chances to keep the score at 1-0.“You know, we scored early and then kind of got on our heels a little bit .They had some energy and some emotion said Rivett on his team’s performance in the second period.
We didn’t do a good enough job of matching their pace. You know, we weathered the storm on the back of a goaltender.”
The Carabins midway through the third-period finally were able to get the puck past Ross on a goal by Amelie Poire-Lehoux, her second of the tournament. When the game seemed like it was going to go in favor of the Carabins, the Cougars put halt to that idea as two minutes later they found back of the net on incredible unassisted goal by Morgan Ramsay. Kaia Borbandy added an empty net goal to seal the victory at 3-1. “We give up one, but we kind of got right back at it and started to generate some momentum the very next shift again we didn’t sit back as a group.
The Cougars enter the tournament as the eight seed and beat the top seed Toronto Varsity
Blues in the quarterfinals and now the fifth-seed Montreal Carabins in the semifinals.
We thought we were better than the seeding that we got placed. Said Ross. We had nothing to lose. We have gone out every game, played our best and what’s gotten us here.
This is Mount Royal’s first ever appearance in the national championship game.
