It’s not often that people get to say they witnessed history being made. However for the boisterous crowd in attendance Saturday night at the Thompson Arena they can indeed say they saw something historic occur.

For the first time in program history, the Western Mustangs women’s hockey team defeated the rival Laurier Golden Hawks, claiming their first win by a 7-2 score.

“Unbelievable,” said Western head coach Chris Higgins following the game. “In our history we’ve never beat Laurier. I’ve got the game puck, we’re going to mount it on the dressing room wall and it’s going to be there forever.”

On a memorable night for the women’s hockey program, the Mustangs were firing on all cylinders, with players both new and old contributing to the victory. Offensively Western was led by Cassidy Gosling, who in her first regular season CIS game scored two goals and an assist, including an absolute beauty of a goal midway through the first period. Second-year netminder Kelly Campbell provided strong goaltending to go along with the offensive outburst, stopping 42 shots to earn the victory.

“I don’t think we had one bad player,” said Higgins about his team’s performance. “If I had to point someone out I thought when we got running around a little bit in our own end I thought Kelly [Campbell] was just strong back there and gave us confidence. Our power play was excellent and our penalty killing, Galloway, Rosen, Green, and Clapham, did a fabulous job.”

The Mustangs were relentless attacking the Laurier net, often leading to the team scoring multiple goals within a few minutes. The team got out to a fast start in the first period, when Ally Galloway opened up the scoring a little over five minutes into the game. Cassidy Gosling then didn’t wait long to find the net, scoring just over a minute later to put Western in front by two early on. She’d add another midway through the period to make it 3-0 Mustangs after the first.

The second period was more of the same for the Mustangs, with Stacey Scott, Kendra Deller, and Kryshandra Green all putting pucks past the Laurier goaltenders.

Laurier began to rebound in the third period as the Mustangs found themselves in penalty trouble. Tammy Freiburger put the Golden Hawks on the board, and Robyn Degagne would shortly add another goal to close the gap to 6-2. Unfortunately for the Golden Hawks that was as close as they would get, as Carly Rolph scored Western’s seventh and final goal to cement the victory.

Even though the win is one of the biggest is Western’s history there’s no time for the team to rest on their laurels as they have to face a tough Waterloo squad tomorrow afternoon.

“Waterloo’s going to be good. When you come off a big win like this sometimes there’s a bit of a letdown, so we’re going to have to get on our girls early and make sure we convert and win,” said Higgins.

Puck drop against the Warriors is set for 4:00 p.m at the Thompson Arena.