MONTREAL -- Sophomore Lea Dumais of Beaconsfield, Que., tallied a natural hat-trick, but it wasn't enough as McGill fell 6-4 to sixth-ranked Concordia in RSEQ women's hockey, Saturday, at McConnell Arena.

The Stingers now hold a 2-1 edge in the season series and improved their lifetime record to 41-82-3 in 126 contests with the Martlets since 1997, when women's hockey was formally sanctioned with a national championship.

"Obviously I didn't like our start -- that's probably the earliest I've called a time-out in quite some time -- but we needed to talked things over," said McGill head coach Peter Smith, who dressed only 17 players -- three below the standard -- and used his lone time-out just three minutes and 49 seconds into the first period, immediately after the Stingers had jumped into a 2-0 lead. "We had a short line-up and there's never any thought of excuses or any of that... We scored four goals against a real good goaltender and we did a lot of good things in the game."

The injury-riddled Martlets were in a deep bind without the services of scoring ace Jade Downie-Landry, along with fellow forwards Marika Labrecque, Kellyane Lecours, Nicole Howlett, Frederique Gauthier and Cora Constantinou, in addition to rearguard Zoe Todd and starting goaltender Tricia Deguire, who was in transit back from Germany where Canadian developmental team was playing at the Nations Cup tourney.

"In the second half of the third period our legs gave out a little bit and there were a few times where we couldn't get the puck out of our own end, but that, to me, was more fatigue than anything. We competed hard and our structure was real good in the game today."

Concordia had jumped to a five-goal lead when, at 18:09 of the second period, Dumais netted her first of the afternoon, unassisted. The 5-foot-6 forward followed it up with another just 30 seconds later, assisted by Sidonie Chard of Kingston, Ont. A power-play marker at 9:01 of the third, set up by Chard and rookie Samantha McCluskey of Etobicoke, Ont., rounded out the 20-year-old's first career hat-trick. She now has eight goals in 61 games overall during her two seasons with McGill.

"We cobbled together the lines today and that line of Shana Walker, Chard and Dumais, they were very effective," noted Smith. "Lots of energy, they had a lot of shots on goal… they did a real good job. As did everybody. I thought everybody stepped it up. It was a challenge today but it was an opportunity. Our girls grabbed hold of that opportunity and ran with it."

Claudia Dubois had put the Stingers on the board just 43 seconds into the game and teammate Stéphanie Lalancette doubled the advantage at 3:49. Marie-Joëlle Allard made it 3-0 at 11:03, which prompted a goalie swap by McGill.

Sophomore Rachelle Champion of East York, Ont., had received her first regular-season start of the year but allowed three goals on four shots and was replaced by rookie Amanda Hadwen of Ottawa, who was also making her first RSEQ appearance. She made 16 saves on 19 shots through the final 49 minutes.

Concordia struck just as quickly in the second period, making it 4-0 with a power-play goal from Lidia Fillion just 40 seconds into the frame. Audrey Belzile added another with the man-advantage at 13:03 before Dumais scored her trio, uninterrupted.

Sophie Gagnon replied 65 seconds after Dumais' third, re-establishing a three-goal lead for the Stingers. Olivia Atkinson of Oakville, Ont., got one back for McGill on the power-play, but with just 21 seconds left in the game the Martlets would have had to match Bill Mosienko's long-standing NHL record for three fastest goals to complete the comeback. In 1952, while playing for Chicago, Mosienko notched a record-setting hat-trick in 21 seconds against the New York Rangers.

Concordia goalie Katherine Purchase turned away 28 of 32 shots at the other end of the ice as her record improved to 6-2.

McGill was 2-for-4 on the power play, while the Stingers capitalized on both their opportunities.

"We moved the puck and we shot the puck and that's what you need to do on a power-play," said Smith, whose squad improved on what was a meagre 11.4 per cent success rate before puck drop. "We had different people playing on the PP, so that was a good thing."

The Martlets (3-5-2) will host Ottawa (7-2-1) at 3 p.m. on Sunday (Jan. 7) at McConnell Arena. Concordia (7-3-0) is off until next week, when they play at Carleton (3-8-0) on Jan. 12.

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2017-18 RSEQ WOMEN'S HOCKEY STANDINGS
 

Rank	RSEQ	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	Montreal	11	6	1	4	16	0.727	30	21	3-0-1	6-1-3	88
2	Ottawa	10	7	2	1	15	0.750	24	21	2-0-0	7-2-1	76
3	Concordia	10	7	3	0	14	0.700	29	23	3-0-0	7-3-0	78
4	McGill	10	3	5	2	8	0.400	25	28	0-1-2	3-5-2	86
5	Carleton	11	3	8	0	6	0.273	15	30	0-6-0	2-8-0	100