University of Saskatchewan Huskies women's forward Bronwyn Boucher is hugged by her teammates Sophie Lalor and Meg Dyer after scoring her first of the season against the Grant MacEwan University Griffins. (Katie Brickman-Young/HuskieFAN)

By Katie Brickman-Young

Boucher notches first U Sports goal

Huskies women’s push streak to five wins

Feb 5, 2022 | 9:05 PM

The University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s hockey team are heating up at a critical time in the season.

Getting their fifth straight win, a 4-1 victory over the Grant MacEwan University Griffins on Saturday afternoon at Merlis Belsher Place in Saskatoon puts the Huskies in sole position of second place in the Canada West Conference.

“I didn’t think we played terribly great today – we knew MacEwan was going to come after us and they did. They played well with a lot more pressure,” said Steve Kook, head coach of the Huskies. “For us, we played well at the right times tonight. I thought we got some timely scoring and we fought through battles.”

The Huskies and the Griffins faced off on the back end of the back-to-back less than 24 hours apart and although the team started slow, Bronwyn Boucher notched her first goal of the year and in her USports career just 4.8 seconds left in the opening frame.

University of Saskatchewan Huskies forward Bronwyn Boucher scored her first USports goal against the Grant MacEwan University Griffins. (Daniella Ponticelli/HuskieFAN)

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She had just finished sitting in the box for a two-minute slashing call when she was sprung by teammate Sophie Lalor at the Griffins blueline. She went one-on-one with the defender, shooting low through their legs to beat Brianna Sank five hole to put the Huskies on the board.

“It felt pretty good to get that monkey off my back, especially coming out of the penalty box. Sophie just passed it up there and just put it through her skates and it went in,” said Boucher. “Honestly, I’ve been fortunate with this group of girls. Everyone pushes each other and it’s a really great environment to grow.”

Kook was happy to see the first year forward get her first as well.

“She deserves it. She’s been snake-bitten all year. She had scored a couple in pre-season, and she has been so close in the regular season,” said Kook. “She has been working so hard and hit so many goal posts, so I’m happy one went in for her.”

The Huskies continued to battle for loose pucks and figure themselves out on the defensive side of the puck throughout the first and second periods. Kook was pleased to see his team fight through a game and come away with the victory.

“I thought early in the game, we weren’t very good in our zone. We needed to fight through that, and it was good to see that we could do that. When we don’t have a good start, it is good to know that we can come back and manage enough of the game that we can get a couple of goals and manage our way to a win,” said Kook. “As we got through the game, our D got better, and our centres supported better, and our wingers were tougher on the puck. We got better and that’s what is important.”

Meg Dyer added to the Huskies lead just 1:45 into the second period on a dish from Kate Ball and Abby Shirley. She had just skated into the zone on a line change and walked into a shot that beat Sank.

Kennedy Brown scored the Huskies third of the night after a strong play by Kara Kondrat to get the puck on the net and Brown was there on the doorstep to shovel it past Sank.

“We weren’t entirely clean, but we did enough of the right things to get the puck out of our zone and got control. We did the right things at the time. We did enough of the right things and this time of the year, that’s important,” said Kook.

Jayme Doyle scored midway through the third period for MacEwan, ending the shutout bid for Colby Wilson, who finished with 12 saves.

The Huskies looked sluggish to start the third period, but after the Griffins got on the board, they appeared to shake off the fog and apply more pressure offensively. Ball finished off the scoring for the Huskies when she deflected a shot from Shirley off her leg on the power play.

The sweep of the Griffins also kept the Huskies win streak alive at five games and will head into next weekend feeling confident and comfortable. But they have a major opponent – the University of Manitoba Bisons – who beat them earlier this season and Manitoba only sits two points behind them in the standings.

“That was four points that we needed. Next weekend, there are four more points that we need, but we needed to take care of this weekend,” said Kook. “We probably won’t know where we sit final standings wise until the last game of the regular season. We are going to play next weekend and the rest of the league has one more weekend while we have the bye. It is important for us to get points in hand while the rest of the league plays. Our fate is in our hands that way.”

Prior to the game, the Huskies honoured their captain and fifth-year player, Bailee Bourassa with a video montage. Her teammates congratulated her at the end of the game, which marked her final regular season game at Merlis Belsher Place. Bourassa scored her first career hat-trick on Friday night and only the second women’s Huskie player to score one. Alumna Kaitlin Willoughby scored three goals in the Canada West quarter-final in 2017 for the Huskies.

“I am so proud of her,” said Boucher. “She has played her heart out and I am so proud of her and this team.”

With file from Daniella Ponticelli