NAPANEE, Ont. --
Jade Downie-Landry of St. Jean sur Richelieu, Que., tallied two goals as the McGill Martlets doubled Western 4-2 in women's hockey exhibition play in the opening round of the Queen's Invitational tournament , Friday, at the Strathcona Paper Centre.
It was the Martlets' first trip to Napanee since winning silver at the 2017 U SPORTS championship, hosted by the Mustangs, and their first time facing Western since a 5-0 loss in the 2015 gold medal match.
"That was our most consistent game so far," said McGill head coach
Peter Smith. "We played close to a 60-minute game. Structurally we still need to get better but I really liked our energy. We played fast in the game today and scored four goals. We worked all week on offensive zone play and I thought we did a good job there. Overall it was good progress."
Downie-Landry, a psychology sophomore, scored the second goal of the game at 9:02 of the first period and notched the game-winner at 12:42 of the middle frame.
"Offensively she had a real strong game," said Smith of the 5-foot-8 forward. "She's playing really well. She's a second-year girl and she had some things to work on in the summer and did a real good job on it, so I'm real happy with her progress."
Sidonie Chard of Kingston, Ont., opened the scoring for McGill just 4:15 into the match. After Downie-Landry made it 2-0,
Rachel Armstrong brought the Mustangs within one at 13:04, and teammate
Beatrice Dufour tied things up with a power-play marker at 3:24 of the second.
Following the eventual game-winner, rookie
Kellyane Lecours of Victoriaville, Que., added an insurance marker on the power play at 16:58. The final period was scoreless.
Martlets netminder
Tricia Deguire of Sherbrooke, Que., turned away 25 of 27 shots faced to earn the win.
Carmen Lasis made 23 saves on 27 shots at the other end of the ice and took the loss.
McGill was 1-for-4 on the power play and went 6-for-7 on the penalty-kill. "We had far too many penalties so we've got to get a little better on that, but it'll come," Smith offered.
In Friday's other tourney game, Queen's edged Ottawa 4-3 in overtime. McGill, which improved to 2-1 in preseason play, takes on the Gaels in their second game of the Queen's Invitational on Saturday (Sept. 23) at 3 p.m. while Western faces Ottawa at 6:30 p.m.
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