Queens 2 Griffins 1
The RDC Queens aren’t making things easy for the faint of heart.
But what they are doing is making a serious run at a playoff berth in the Alberta Colleges Women’s Hockey League.
Despite being outshot 33-12 the Queens pulled out a 2-1 victory over the Grant MacEwan University Griffins at the Arena Thursday, which moved them into a fourth place tie with the idle SAIT Trojans.
The Queens have three games remaining — one at Grant MacEwan tonight and a home-and-home series against the NAIT Ooks next week — while SAIT plays their final two games against NAIT this weekend.
Despite the edge in shots on goal and an edge in territorial play, the Queens didn’t panic.
“The girls are a lot more mentally tough than they were in the first half and that’s a process,” said Queens head coach Trevor Keeper. “It takes a while to learn that especially when you’re so young. In a playoff type game, and this was just that for us, you don’t always have the lead and things aren’t always going your way, but you do whatever it takes to win and that’s what we did. We held a 2-1 lead and the girls were blocking shots and being as gritty as they could.”
After a scoreless opening period the Griffins grabbed a 1-0 lead 40 seconds into the middle stanza on a snap shot from third-year defenceman Jenaya Townsend.
But the Queens didn’t let that bother them. In fact they picked up their play and Rachael Hoppins tied the game on the power play with her fifth goal of the season after captain Megan Abt drove out of the corner and put the puck in the slot.
Jayna Kitchen, who could well be the best rookie forward in the league, scored the winner at 12:07 when she grabbed a bouncing puck and cut in front and beat goaltender Katie Sigurdson high to the stick side for her 10th goal.
“It shows the change in our team from the first half as we’re all working together, creating chances and getting some goals,” said first-year netminder Camille Trautman, who was once again brilliant as she lowered her goals-against-average to 1.87 and increased her save percentage to .940.
And while she never looked out of control she gave a lot of credit to her teammates.
“The defence did an awesome job of clearing rebounds and making sure I could see the puck,” she said. “And when there was some pressure they did a good job of getting the puck off the glass and out.”
That was something Keeper had talked about.
“They’re a fast team and forecheck hard. In fact I think they’re the hardest forechecking team in our league. We knew that coming in and we knew we had to move the puck quickly coming out of our end,” said Keeper. “And if there was no one open try to use the glass the best we could to relieve the pressure. But when you do that you create some odd-man rushes and scoring opportunities.”
The coaching staff also stressed heading into the third period that they had to protect in front of Trautman and clear the rebounds.
“The girls did a good job of that that’s why MacEwan didn’t get another goal. It just shows there’s been a lot of improvement since the beginning of the season,. We’re super young but we’re getting better every week. The big thing is confidence as they know they can get the job done. Prior to Christmas they may have panicked a bit no matter what the coaching staff may say. Now they calm themselves down and they believe.”
Plus they continue to get outstanding goaltending from Trautman and Toni Ross.
“Goaltending and defence give you an opportunity to win.”
Trautman was making her first start in two weeks as Ross was between the pipes in a pair of wins over Mount Royal last weekend.
“It was good that Toni played and she was awesome,” said Trautman. “But it’s good to get back in there and into the flow of things.”
Now that they’re finally tied with SAIT both Trautman and Keeper stressed they can’t start looking ahead.
“We’re in control of our own destiny, but we want to stay in our 24 hour bubble and not even think of anything beyond the game we’re playing,” said Keeper. “We were only thinking of tonight’s game now we’ll go back, refocus and reenergize for tomorrow’s game up there.”
“You start looking ahead it’s too much. We have to focus on one game at a time,” added Trautman.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com