MONTREAL -- Kellyane Lecours of Victoriaville, Que., potted the game-winner at 63 seconds into double-overtime as sixth-ranked McGill rallied past top-ranked Concordia 4-3 in an RSEQ women's hockey thriller at McConnell Arena, Saturday afternoon.
 
It was the fourth consecutive win in league play for the Martlets and improved their record to 7-3-3 on the season, while ConU dropped to 10-1-2. The result avenged a 2-1 loss against the Stingers on Nov, 24, and improved McGill's record to 88-46-5 in 139-lifetime meetings against Concordia since 1997.
 
On the winning tally, rearguard Kate Devries passed the puck to Labrecque in the neutral zone and headed to the bench. Labrecque relayed the pass to Lecours, an elementary education junior who connected for her fifth of the season and her fourth game-winner. The 5-foot-5 forward now has 22 markers -- seven of them game-winning tallies -- in 44 regular season contests. Over her three seasons, she also has 40 career markers in 81 games overall.
 
"We had really good patience, 3-on-3 is all about puck possession and that is what we did," said Martlets head coach Peter Smith.  "That was a playoff hockey game right there and it will serve us well."

Concordia had a 36-33 margin in shots on net but McGill held a 5-2 edge in the two five-minute overtime sessions, which Lecours ended only 63 seconds into the second sudden-death stanza.

"I liked our game today but when you play a good team like Concordia there are going to be lots of ebbs and flows," noted Smith. "A big thing was the way we reacted when they got the third goal late in the game (to force overtime). There was no sagging or drooping of the shoulders, we just went back at it."
 
After a scoreless first period, Concordia forward Rosalie Begin-Cyr opened the scoring at 2:58 of the second period with her league-leading 11th of the season.
 
Jade Downie-Landry, a senior from St. Jean, Que., replied for the Martlets with a power-play goal at 6:42 of the middle period. Only 45 seconds later, teammate Marika Labrecque of Lac Etchemin, Que., registered an unassisted goal, as McGill took a 2-1 lead heading into the final period.
 
Beaconsfield native Lea Dumais potted a power-play marker at 7:12 of the third period to give the Martlets a comfortable 3-1 advantage. But less than four mainutes later, Begin-Cyr scored her second of the game at 11:00, narrowing the gap to one goal for the Stingers.
 
At 14:33 of the third period, McGill's Christiana Colizza was assessed a questionable double-minor for checking to the head, giving Concordia most of the final five minutes to score the equalizer. The Stingers eventually pulled their goalie with 3:33 remaining on the clock and the risky gambit paid off when captain Audrey Belzile capitalized at 18:07 to force a five-minute, 4-on-4 overtime, followed by a 3-on-3 session.
 
Senior goaltender Tricia Deguire of Sherbrooke, Que., saved 33 of 36 shots for the victory and improved her record to 7-5 in the regular season. She continues to lead the conference's goalies in minutes played (754), shutouts (3), goals-against average (1.51) and save percentage (.945).
 
Stingers netminder Alice Philbert blocked 29 of 33 shots and was charged with the loss as her record fell to 9-2.
 
McGill went 2-for-4 on the power-play and successfully killed off four of five penalties. The Martlets now lead the RSEQ conference in both power-play succes (23.1 per cent) and penalty-killing (90.5).
 
Both teams get less than a day to recuperate and will return to the ice on Sunday afternoon for a 3 p.m. puck-drop. The Stingers (10-1-2) will host Montreal (7-3-3), while McGill (7-3-3) return to McConnell Arena against Ottawa (4-7-1).
 
MARTLET MURMURS:  Former Martlets Michelle Daigneault, Gillian Merrifield and Natalie Smith (with her newborn baby) were all in attendance at McConnell Arena. In addition, Cheryl Pounder, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, who played under Peter Smith during the 2006 Turin Olympics, brought her PeeWee AA team from Brampton for the game.
 
SCORING SUMMARY

RSEQ STATS & STANDINGS