Willoughby delivers first round series sweep to Huskies
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| Kaitlin Willoughby (#17) celebrates her series-winning goal for the Huskies. |
Just when everything seemed dark, Kaitlin Willoughby brought
the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s hockey team into the light.
On Saturday night at the ancient Rutherford Rink, the
Huskies went into Game 2 of their best-of-three Canada West quarter-final
playoff series looking for a sweep of the University of Regina Cougars. In the
third period of Saturday’s clash, things were looking bleach for the home side.
When all hope seemed lost, Willoughby stepped up and stormed
into the Cougars zone on a spectacular individual rush. The Prince Albert
product wired home the winning goal top corner on Cougars netminder Jane Kish
to put the Huskies up 2-1 with 3:35 to play.
During the first two periods of Saturday’s game, it seemed
like the Huskies would steadily push to a low-scoring win. With 2:09 to play in
the first period, Bailee Bourassa accounted for the Huskies first goal thanks
to a positive bounce. Huskies sophomore forward Courtney Cormack flipped a shot
high on the U of R goal, and it deflected off Bourassa into the net to give the
hosts a 1-0 edge.
Hendricks ultimately made 31 stops to earn the win in goal
for the Huskies. She admitted she got pretty pumped, when Willoughby put the
hosts ahead.
The two clubs split their four encounters in the regular
season. The Thunderbirds finished first in Canada West with a 23-4-1 record and
are rated first in the U Sports top 10 rankings. The Huskies were fourth in
Canada West with a 15-10-3 mark.
The Huskies went into the third period holding a 1-0 lead,
but the never-say-die Cougars came out hard and were throwing everything
including the kitchen sink at Huskies goalie Cassidy Hendricks recording the
first 12 shots on goal in the frame.
At the 9:33 mark of the third, the Cougars finally broke
through as fourth-year defender Jolene Kirkpatrick found the equalizer on her
side’s 13th shot of the period to force a 1-1 tie. The Huskies for
the most part were unable to get out of their zone, and it seemed like it would
just be a matter of time before the Cougars went ahead on the scoreboard.
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| Kaitlin Willoughby starts her drive on her game-winning goal rush. |
The Huskies came to life to close out the 2-1 victory in
Game 2 and sweep the series 2-0.
“I think when they scored, it was kind of just like you just
feel like so upset,” said Willoughby, who had a hat trick in the Huskies series
opening 4-3 win on Friday night at Rutherford. “You just have to make sure
everyone on the bench is ready to go.
“We’re not going to let that bother us. I kind of said to
everyone like let’s make sure this doesn’t affect us. We got to go out and keep
doing what we are doing, because it is going to come our way. It did.
“I am so proud of how our team played this weekend. If we
play like that from here on out, we will be doing good things.”
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| Defender Jolene Kirkpatrick had the equalizer for the Cougars. |
After 40 minutes, the Huskies seemed to have control of the
game holding a 17-14 edge in shots on goal and having spent long stretches in
the U of R zone. In the third, the visitors came in waves, but Hendricks, who
is the Huskies fifth-year money netminder, was up to the challenge of holding
her team in the game.
“It was a really hard period,” said Hendricks. “Luckily,
there were a lot of faraway shots, so I could control it pretty well.
“I just had to focus on staying like calm. I just had to
focus on making saves and controlling my rebounds. It worked out for the most
part.”
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| Cassidy Hendricks makes one of her 31 saves for the Huskies. |
“I am just so glad to have Willo on the team,” said
Hendricks. “She just always performs when she needs to, especially with last
night’s three goals.
“She is just a huge player. I love her on the team.”
Kish turned away 21 shots to take the loss in goal for the
Cougars.
The series win was a first for Huskies interim first-year
head coach Robin Ulrich, but the bench boss wasn’t overly concerned about that
fact.
“More important, the team got the win,” said Ulrich. “That
is all I really care about. Overall, I think it was a real good series for us.
“Those were a couple of excellent games for us as a team.
Tonight, was a big test. Regina came with everything they had.
“I really like the game that we brought tonight.”
With the series win, the Huskies advance to play the
University of British Columbia Thunderbirds in a best-of-three Canada West semifinal
series. Game 1 is set for this coming Friday in Vancouver.
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| The Huskies salute the crowd at Rutherford after their series sweep. |
Willoughby can’t wait to take on the next challenge in the
post-season.
“I think it is going to be awesome going to UBC,” said
Willoughby. “We’re not going to take them lightly, but at the same time, we
know that we can beat them.
“We just have to go do the things we’ve been doing all year
that had success against them before. It will be an exciting series that’s for
sure, but I think it will be good.”
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