The Wilfrid Laurier University women’s hockey team took on the nationally ranked Brock Badgers at home on Thursday night in their second match up against a nationally ranked team this season.
Brock opened up the scoring five minutes into the game, taking the lead early in the first, but Laurier’s Emily Woodhouse answered with one of her own just 21 seconds later, keeping Laurier in the game. Brock answered back just two minutes later, leaving the score at 2-1 ending the first period.
The Badgers would extend their lead to 3-1 seven minutes into the second on a power play, but when given a power play opportunity of their own, Laurier responded with a goal off of Jaden Head, the team’s leading scorer this season with three goals.
Goalie Hannah Miller saved 31 of 34 shots, while Laurier only took 26 shots on their opponent. Miller holds a .958 save percentage this season, ranking second in save percentage, behind Brock’s goalie by only .002.
The game was very fast paced and physical, with both teams receiving three penalties each throughout, including both teams down a player for roughing penalties and a four-minute minor for head contact. Physicality was a major reason that Laurier held their own in the game, as they refused to be pushed around by Brock.
“The coaching staff needs to do a better job preparing and motivating the group, we need to start the game on time and we can’t quit when we are tired. We have to quit when the other team is tired. We really need to work on the will to do this moving forward.”
Brock would end up taking the game 3-2, but Laurier held a nationally ranked team to a one-goal lead, a tremendous feat regardless.
Head coach, Rick Osborne was very impressed by the way the Golden Hawks played against such a tough team.
“We needed to neutralize their three or four best players – with one of them being their goaltender – and a few players that play a lot of minutes. We did a good job but their top end players still made the difference in a game that could have gone either way,” Osborne said.
Though the game resulted in a loss, playing such a hard game against Brock gave a lot of takeaways to the Laurier team.
As Coach Osborne puts it: “I would like to see our players have more buy-in to some basic tactics and individual skills that we work on in practice and be better at transferring this to game day.”
“The coaching staff needs to do a better job preparing and motivating the group, we need to start the game on time and we can’t quit when we are tired. We have to quit when the other team is tired. We really need to work on the will to do this moving forward.”
The Golden Hawks’ next game is against the University of Toronto, who they also played their home opener against.
Knowing their competition, Osborne mentioned that the “home opener against Toronto was a fast and physical game,” but one where the team played with intensity.
“We need to deliver some payback this Saturday at Toronto,” he said.