MONTREAL -- Alexandre O'Neill of Dollard des Ormeaux, Que., registered a hat-trick as the Lac St-Louis Tigers, a boys midget espoir team, defeated the McGill women's hockey squad 5-3 Thursday, in the annual battle of the sexes at McConnell Arena.

The Martlets have now dropped six of nine confrontations with boys teams since head coach Peter Smith began the annual experiment to give his Martlets a highly-competitive preseason schedule.

Lac St. Louis, which outshot McGill 35-24, led 1-0 after the first period and 4-2 after two. The final period ended in a 1-1 stalemate. Only three penalties were called, all of them to the boys but McGill was unable to capitalize. The contest took only an hour and 50 minutes to play.

O'Neill put his side up 2-0 at 1:16 of the second period and made it 4-0 with the winning tally less than four minutes later as the Tigers exploded for three markers in a three-minute, 48-second span. The 5-foot-10, 167-pound forward completed his three-goal soiree at 5:37 of the third stanza.

Trailing 4-0, the Martlets stormed back with three consecutive goals. Freshman Marika Labrecque of Lac Etchemin, Que., made it 4-1 at 14:41 of the middle period, followed three minutes later by senior Marie-Philip Lavoie of Pohenegamook, Que., and Lauren Bowman, a civil engineering freshman from Calgary, who struck paydirt at 3:10 of the third.

But O'Neill sealed the deal less than two minutes later. Other marksmen for the Tigers were Joe Lepage of Beaconsfield, Que., who opened the scoring at 3:51 of the first period, and Ben Koehler of Pte. Claire, Que., who made it 3-0 early in the second. Koehler is the grandson of Dick Irvin, the Hall of Fame broadcaster who skated for the McGill Redmen from 1951 to 1953.

Goaltender Jake Connor-McGregor of Pierrefonds, Que., started between the pipes for the visitors and turned aside all 11 shots faced for the win. He was relieved at the midway mark by Justin Grenon, also from Pierrefonds, who kicked out 10 of 13 shots.

The Martlets deployed three goalies, begininng with starter Tricia Deguire, a sophomore from Sherbrooke, Que., who saved 11 of 12 shots. She was replaced at the beginning of the second by Rachelle Champion, a sophomore from Toronto, who conceded three goals on 13 shots and was charged with the loss. Freshman Amanda Hadwen of Ottawa played the third period and kicked out nine of 10.

McGill, which dropped to 5-8 overall (0-3 in league play), will resume their regular season schedule at Carleton (2-2) on Nov. 10 before hosting division-leading Concordia (3-1) on Sunday, Nov. 12 at 3 p.m.

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SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
McGill Sports Info Office
(514) 398-7012