KINGSTON, Ont. – The Western Mustangs will head into the U SPORTS Women's Hockey Championship as the OUA Champions, winning the McCaw Cup with a 3-0 shutout victory over the Queen's Gaels on Saturday afternoon at the Memorial Centre Arena.
"We were expecting a good environment, and I think we got it, the energy in the building was awesome," said Mustangs head coach
Kelly Paton. "Our girls were just ready from the start of the day today they showed really good energy and kept things positive and obviously got rewarded with a few goals."
Three different Mustangs provided the offence in the win, with
Emma Pearson,
Alyssa Chiarello, and
Amanda Pereira all marking their name on the scoresheet on Saturday.
Carmen Lasis continued her fantastic playoff run in the Western net, turning aside all 28 shots she faced to secure the win, recording her second shutout of the playoffs to earn game MVP honours.
Western opened the scoring 11 minutes into the game, with Pearson firing a shot from the blue line that got through the traffic in front and past Gaels netminder Stephanie Pascal to give the Mustangs an early 1-0 lead.
The Mustangs continued to hold an edge in the second period, limiting the Gaels to only three shots, and just when it looked like the frame would pass without a goal, Chiarello extended Western's lead to 2-0 with only 22 seconds left on the clock.
Queen's appeared to cut the Mustangs lead to 2-1 early in the final period, however the goal was waived off, with Western maintaining their two-goal advantage.
The Gaels continued to press, including pulling Pascal for the extra attacker on three different occasions during the final few minutes, but Pereira finished things off with an empty net marker at 18:14 of the third to secure the 3-0 win for Western.
Both the Mustangs and Gaels will now head to the U SPORTS Women's Hockey Championship next week, with Western hosting the event from March 15-18 at Thompson Arena. Check back to westernmustangs.ca on Sunday when the full tournament schedule is announced.
