OTTAWA -- Olivia Atkinson of Oakville, Ont., tallied twice as McGill topped Carleton 5-2 in RSEQ women's hockey, Friday, at the CU Ice House.

It was the third straight win for the Martlets, who improved their head-to-head record against the Ravens to 92-4-1 in 97 lifetime meetings. McGill, which outshot the Ravens 38-22, led 3-0 after one period and 4-2 after two.

"We're getting there," said McGill head coach Peter Smith,  who improved his all-time record behind the McGill bench to 484-198-32 in 714 games overall. "It's still a work in progress but we're getting there. I didn't think that we played with quite the same structure tonight as we did against Montreal (a commanding 5-1 win on Jan. 14), but Carleton is a hard team to play against -- they came out with a lot of energy.

"We had to play hard to win tonight and that's a good thing," he added. "We got a lot of learning out of the game, and that's what you want. To be in an experience where you're going to get something out of it."

Atkinson, a 5-foot-8 junior forward, improved her lead in the RSEQ scoring race, upping her total to 15 points, including a league-high eight goals, in 13 games.

Sidonie Chard, a sophomore from Kingston, Ont., got things started with her second marker of the season only 4:47 into the game. Atkinson made it 2-0 on the power play at 17:29, and sophomore Olivia Ramos of New Westminster, B.C., upped the visitors lead to 3-0 just seven seconds after that.

Anne-Pier Tremblay put Carleton on the board on the power play at 5:39 of the second and teammate Shannon Pearson added another PP goal 55 seconds later, narrowing the gap to 3-2. But Atkinson restored McGill's two-goal lead at 12:44, again on the man-advantage.

Sophomore forward Lauren Bowman of Calgary, Alta., added an extra insurance marker for McGill with her first strike of the season, at 16:06 of the final period.

"The line of Bowman and Ramos and Marie-Philip Lavoie was very good," praised Smith. "They got two goals and brought lots of energy."

Martlets netminder Tricia Deguire of Sherbrooke, Que., turned away 20 of 22 shots as her record improved to 5-6 with a 2.05 goals-against average and a .921 save percentage.

McGill was 2-for-5 on the power play and killed off four of six penalties.

Ravens goalie Katelyn Steele allowed five goals on 38 chances as her record dropped to 3-11.

The Martlets (6-5-2) remain in the national capital to face Ottawa (7-5-1) at 2 p.m. on Saturday (Jan. 20). Carleton (3-11-0) visits Concordia (9-3-1) on Sunday.