Laurier’s women’s hockey team is still in search of their first win of the season after two home losses this weekend.
A 5-3 loss against Nipissing on Friday night as well as a 2-0 loss to Laurentian on Saturday afternoon has Coach Paton’s team sitting at the bottom of the OUA with a 0-0-1-3 record. The first four games of the season have not gone the way the Golden Hawks have expected, in her second season behind the bench, coach Kelly Paton, took away some positives over this weekend that she believes will guide the team for the remainder of the season.
“From an outcome standpoint we are disappointed with the result, but we are looking for growth opportunities and we got better at a lot of moments over the past few games,” Paton said after the loss.
Friday night’s game against the Nipissing Lakers was a tale of two periods as the Golden Hawks got out to a great start.
The team dominated the opening 20 minutes of the game, and had a lead early after third year player, Emily Visser batted away at the puck and scored her first goal of the new season. While the Golden Hawks were outshooting the Lakers 8-3 and held a one-goal lead after the first period, the second period completely flipped the game around, as Nipissing took control.
First-year goaltender Victoria Kelaiditis got her start with the Golden Hawks as they were on the first night of a back to back and struggled in the second, allowing four goals on twelve shots in the period, which decisively gave the Lakers complete control of the game, to which they didn’t look back.
Although captain Jamie Watson scored her first on the year and rookie Kyra Minoletti scored hers as a Hawk, the Lakers went on to win 5-3.
Saturday’s game against Laurentian was riddled with penalties and was a physical affair —into the first five minutes of the game, four penalties were given out, including a game misconduct to Laurier defenseman Steph Caleca.
The game totalled 52 minutes of penalty time between the two teams.
Other than the penalties — that stayed persistent throughout the game — the Voyageurs scored the only two goals with one in the first and another in the second.
A great second and third period, capped with a 29-save shutout by Shanna Dolighan helped give Laurentian their first win of the season.
With the 52 combined penalty minutes in the game on Saturday, the Golden Hawks now lead all teams with 61 penalty minutes through the first four games.
“We cannot let the game be dictated by our emotions,” Paton said to her team during the first-period intermission.
Coach Paton will try and get her team to regroup as they sit last in the OUA in many critical categories including; goals, penalties, power-play percentage and save percentage. Amongst that, the Golden Hawks join Windsor and Ontario Tech as the only teams without a win.
Coach Paton stated that “the focus moving forward is the production on the offensive side.” With the Golden Hawks only averaging one goal per game, they will have to do more to help their goalie out.
The Hawks will hit the road for the first time this upcoming weekend, with games against Queens and Ontario Tech.
