MONTREAL -- Goaltender
Tricia Deguire of Sherbrooke, Que., registered a 26-save shutout and three different players scored as No.9 McGill blanked top-ranked Concordia 3-0 in RSEQ women's hockey at the Ed Meagher Arena, Sunday afternoon.
It was the second consecutive loss via shutout for the Stingers (1-2), who will no doubt slip from their top perch in the national rankings. McGill improved their head-to-head record against Concordia to 83-43-3 in 129 meetings since 1997, when women's hockey was formally sanctioned with a national championship.
The Martlets, who outshot Concordia 28-26, snapped a scoreless draw by tallying all three goals in the final stanza.
"One of our key messages before the game was discipline," said McGill head coach
Peter Smith. "Not strictly in the sense of emotion and avoiding penalties but in the sense of sticking with the game plan and maintaining structure. We did a good job of that in terms of intensity. Sometimes when you play with intensity, you get away from your structure but we really did a good job in sticking with it today. When you play a good team, structure's your friend. It was probably our best 60-minute game this year (in 12 games overall) and it was against a good team like Concordia."
Sidonie Chard of Kingston, Ont., scored the game-winner at 4:14 of the third period.
Marika Labrecque, a 5-foot-5 forward from Lac Etchemin, Que., gave the Martlets a two-goal cushion at 16:29 and forward
Frederique Gauthier of Laval, Que., potted an empty-netter at 18:23.
Deguire, a 21-year-old kinesiology junior, was on her game and made a number of key saves in the final period. The 5-foot-8 goalie improved to 3-0 in league play and recorded her 14th career shutout in 77 games overall. Excluding a pair of preseason shutouts, it was McGill's first whitewash in league play since a 1-0 overtime victory at Carleton on Jan. 28, 2018.
Stingers netminder
Alice Philbert saved 25 of 27 shots as her record tumbled to 1-2.
McGill went 0-for-4 on the power-play and killed off their lone penalty.
Concordia (1-2) hosts Montreal (3-0) on Nov 2 before the Martlets (3-0) "host" UdeM in a first-place showdown on Sunday Nov, 4, at the Centre Sportif Thibault in Sherbrooke, Que. Last season, Montreal was the host team of that inaugural Sherbrooke game and lost 5-1 to McGill on Jan. 14, 2018. The two teams agreed to play this annual regular season contest, giving up a home game on a rotational basis, in a bid to encourage and recruit women's hockey players from outside the Montreal region.
SCORING SUMMARY
2018-19 RSEQ WOMEN'S HOCKEY STANDINGS
| 1 |
McGill |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
1.000 |
11 |
2 |
3-0-0 |
3-0-0 |
10 |
| 2 |
Montreal |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
1.000 |
11 |
1 |
3-0-0 |
3-0-0 |
20 |
| 3 |
Concordia |
3 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
0.333 |
4 |
5 |
0-2-0 |
1-2-0 |
16 |
| 4 |
Carleton |
2 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0.000 |
2 |
9 |
0-2-0 |
0-2-0 |
20 |
| 5 |
Ottawa |
3 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0.000 |
2 |
13 |
0-3-0 |
0-3-0 |
24 |
