Western vs. Toronto - Wendesday, February 12 at 7 PM

After closing out the regular season with a convincing win over Waterloo on Sunday, the Mustangs are set to battle it out against Toronto in the OUA Quarter Finals in a best-of-three first round series. While Western finished the season with a record of 14-9-1, good enough for sixth place, the Varsity Blues closed out their season with a three-game win streak to put them in third place with a record of 18-5-1.  Toronto will have home ice advantage and will host the Mustangs for game one of the series on Wednesday evening at Varsity Arena in Toronto.

Since missing the playoffs three years ago, Western has evolved into a post-season powerhouse as they trotted their way to the OUA finals in each of the past two seasons.  While they eventually fell just short, losing to Queen's last year and Laurier the year before, the Mustangs swept the Toronto Varsity Blues in the first round of both seasons.  Needless to say there is quite a bit of history between these two squads.  Over the last three years the clubs have met on the ice a total of 12 times with Western owning the series with a record of 7-4-1. This year has seen the Mustangs struggle against the Blues in their previous two meetings as the purple and white have yet to record a win against the Toronto squad in this season.

In their first meeting the Blues protected their home ice, outlasting the Mustangs last minute efforts to prevail with a 2-1 victory.  The second contest, played at Thompson Arena only a few weeks ago, was an even tougher loss for Western as the Blues out muscled the purple and white 4-1 while skating in enemy territory. Despite their 0-2 record against the Blues this season, the post-season is the most important and the Mustangs will be looking to their trademark playoff peak to overcome the Toronto team.

Two years ago, when Toronto also had the home-ice advantage, it was Carly Rolph leading the way for the Mustangs.  She scored the first goal in game one for the Mustangs and the overtime winner in game two to send Western on to the second round.  When the teams met again the following year it was with Western who had home ice advantage but it wouldn't matter yet again since the series only lasted two games.  Mustang Brittany Clapham, who scored a goal against Waterloo on Sunday, scored twice in game one to give the purple and white the 2-0 victory.  Game two would require overtime for the second year in a row, but the Varsity Blues would do their best not to let history repeat itself, battling the Mustangs for three overtime periods before Western's Katelyn Gosling scored an emotional and extremely memorable goal to end the series. 

Stacey Scott (7G – 10A – 17Pts) has several points in games against Toronto but the team will have to find a way to win without their scoring leader as Coach Higgins confirmed Sunday that the injury she suffered on January 31 against Ryerson will keep her sidelined for another week – or possibly even two. This means that Western will have to depend on secondary scoring to get the job done, a tall task when facing a team that has only allowed 36 goals all season, good for second best in the OUA.  With points against Waterloo both team captain Rolph and Cassidy Gosling have tied Scott with 17 points on the season.  They will have to lead the way on the score sheet along with converted forward Sydney Kidd and Clapham.  The Mustangs will be facing off against a team riddled with offensive tools, headlined by Captain Kelly O'Hanlon who leads her team in scoring with five goals and 23 points.  Taylor Day (11G – 10A – 21Pts) is another weapon for the Blues, and she and O'Hanlon both played in the previous two playoffs matchups, each scoring points against Western. Between O'Hanlon and Day, along with the Brind'Amour-McClure sisters who both registered 18 points this year, Mustangs netminder Kelly Campbell will have her work cut out for her.

Campbell is not only an All-Canadian goaltender but she has also been between the pipes for each game against Toronto this season as well as the four previous playoff matchups versus the Varsity Blues.  She registered impressive statistics yet again this season, posting a 1.99 goals against average and a .935 save percentage in 17 games played.  However, her Varsity Blues counterpart has done well to out-duel her both on the ice and the stats sheet so far this season.  Nicole Kesteris registered a shutout in five of the 19 games she played this season while allowing a stingy 1.34 goals against average and collecting a league best .948 save percentage. 

Coach Higgins is all too familiar with the Varsity Blues club and knows exactly what to expect going into this series.  "They've played us well the two times we played them but I'm not worried," he said Sunday. "It's going to come down to goaltending and special teams – and we like our goaltending, we like our special teams and they like theirs so it's going to be a one goal game either way," he said.  While both teams finished in the middle of the pack on the penalty kill this season with Toronto having the slight advantage – edging Western 88.6% to 87.8% - it is Western that has the definite advantage on the power play. 

While they finished the season in third place amongst all OUA teams with a power play unit that converts 18.1 per cent of the time, the Mustangs have flourished so far in 2014 scoring 11 times on 51 chances for a blistering 21.5 per cent conversion rate.  Much of their recent success is owed to defenceman Brianna Iazzolino, who runs the power play from the point and participated in the scoring of six of the eleven markers with the man advantage so far this year.  This could certainly give Western the upper hand with Toronto's power play unit only converting 10.1 per cent of the time.  Either way, Wednesday night's matchup promises to be an exciting and emotional contest between two well-established and decorated OUA teams.

The game is scheduled to take place at Varsity Arena in Toronto with the puck set to drop at 7:00 p.m. this Wednesday, February 12.