After picking up two wins on the road against the University of Alberta Pandas, the UBC women’s hockey team extended its winning streak to six games with a two-game sweep of the University of Manitoba Bisons.
Friday’s game ended in a close contest between the ’Birds and Bisons, where a late goal by Hannah Clayton-Carroll put UBC on top 3-2. Forwards Mathea Fischer and Stephanie Schaupmeyer had the other two goals for the T-Birds.
On Saturday, the ’Birds came out with a 6-2 win.
“[The Bisons] were coming in 17-0. They only allowed four goals against and so for us to come in, I guess it was a bit of a statement,” said UBC head coach Graham Thomas after the game.
Only two minutes into the game, the ’Birds managed an odd-man rush that ended in a goal by Stephanie Schaupmeyer from the left circle. While there was no more scoring in the remainder of the first frame, UBC’s offence remained strong, as the ’Birds outshot the Bisons 12-4.
The T-Birds' peak in the game came midway through the second frame when the team lit the lamp three times in only five minutes.
The first of the three goals went to fourth-year forward Kathleen Cahoon, who buried the puck past the Manitoba goalkeeper Rachel Dyck from the slot. Two minutes later, Schaupmeyer picked up her second goal of the game and third of the weekend when a shot by teammate Celine Tardif from the right circle touched her stick before making its way into the net.
“The way we were moving the puck around was really hard to defend against. I’m just really happy that we’re using all five players on the ice,” said Thomas.
After giving up a third goal, Dyck was pulled from the Bisons net and replaced by Amanda Schubert.
Three minutes after the goaltending change, Manitoba’s Alexandra Anderson received a penalty for holding. On the ensuing UBC power play, defenceman Alexa Ranahan fired a one-timer from the left circle to put UBC up 4-0.
With four minutes remaining in the second period, the Bisons finally got onto the scoreboard when Erin Kucheravy shot the puck from the right circle for a top-shelf goal.
In the final second of the second frame, Manitoba was assessed a “too many players on ice” penalty, which gave UBC yet another power play to start the third. A minute into the period, Cahoon fed a centering pass to Haneet Parhar, neatly setting her up for a goal.
“We’ve been working on our power plays a lot and I think finally it’s working for us. I know Manitoba’s got a pretty high [penalty] kill percentage, so it’s nice to break that,” said Schaupmeyer.
Manitoba’s Cassandra Taylor had a goal to narrow the ’Birds' lead to 5-2 before penalties to Caitlin Fyten and Erica Rieder in the final three minutes gave UBC a 5-on-3 advantage, where Mairead Bast netted the final goal of the game to secure UBC a 6-2 win.
UBC now holds the first-place spot in Canada West and will travel on the road to play the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns on Friday, November 4 and Saturday, November 5.