Huskies women split final home series with Regina

“We get into playoffs, you’re going to have to put two games back to back. It’s not enough just to play one and if you want to let it ride on a third, that’s not a situation anybody wants to get into.”

Sunday’s loss for Saskatchewan is just the fourth win of the season for the Cougars (4-20-2), and snaps an eight-game losing skid for the Highway 11 rival.

Cougars netminder Natalie Williamson faced an aggressive Huskies offence, making 36 saves for her first win of the season.

With her 16th start in net, Huskies goaltender Camryn Drever turned away 16 shots.

Despite the defeat, Sunday’s home finale of the regular season marked a special milestone for second-year defenseman McKenna Bolger.

The Calgary product, who notched her first assist of the season in Saturday’s game, opened scoring 6:27 into the first period Sunday for her first goal of the season — assisted by Sara Kendall and Kate Ball.

“I was really only shooting it in hopes it would pop out for someone else and it somehow ended up in the net, so it worked out well,” said Bolger, whose mom was watching in the stands.

The Cougars responded 8:56 into the second with a power play goal from Lauren Focht, helped by Heather Fiske.

A sister act from the Kushniruks broke the tie for Regina just 1:26 into the third period. Younger sister Makena fed the puck to Jadyn for the game winner.

“Definitely not the outcome we wanted, but we know what we need to do next weekend so we will get our minds and bodies right this week,” Bolger said.

Huskies players welcomed young fans onto the ice for a post-game skate Sunday to cap the regular season at home.

The University of Saskatchewan was also crowned the winner of the inaugural U-Prairie Challenge, a points-based competition exclusively against the University of Regina.

The Huskies (13-10-3) finish the regular season on the road against the No. 3-ranked Mount Royal University Cougars (18-5-3).

Games will be played at the Flames Community Arenas in Calgary Friday at 8 p.m. CST and Saturday at 7 p.m. CST.

Without points from Sunday’s game, Saskatchewan remains fifth in the Canada West standings with 28 points — one point back from the University of Calgary Dinos.

If the rankings remain through the final weekend, the Huskies will play Calgary on the road for the conference quarter-final best-of-three Feb. 17-19. Saskatchewan cannot mathematically fall below fifth in Canada West.

Catch all the action live and archived on the HuskieFAN app and at huskiefan.ca

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daniella.ponticelli@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @dponticelliTV

by Daniella Ponticelli

Huskies women split final home series with Regina

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