MONTREAL – It was one of those good news, bad news days for McGill netminder Sophie Lajeunesse. The civil engineering senior from Calgary was a surprise starter between the pipes for the Martlets in the team's RSEQ semifinal playoff opener against top-seeded Concordia. She registered a career-high 40 saves but despite the brick wall that she constructed in front of the McGill net, it was the Stingers who prevailed as they narrowly escaped with a 2-1 victory before 300 fans at the Ed Meagher Arena.
 
Concordia, the No. 2-ranked women's hockey team in the nation, is now in position to sweep the best-of-three series with a win in Game 2 on Saturday, slated for a 3:30 p.m.  matinee at the Place Bell Community Arena. Should some McGill magic manifest itself, then a rubber match is scheduled for Sunday in a 2 p.m. start back at the Loyola campus.

Despite the intensity of a playoff opener, only two penalties were called, with both teams going 0-for-1 on the power-play.
 
Lajeunesse did not look rusty despite making what was only her fifth appearance of the season overall and her first in six weeks, since playing at Bishop's on Jan. 12. The 5-foot-8 netminder comes from a McGill sporting lineage as both her father (Francois) and uncle (Marc) played hockey for McGill, while her mother (Valerie Bender) played varsity volleyball during the beginning of Martlets bench boss Rachele Beliveau's 34-year coaching tenure.

The Stingers, who had a 42-19 edge in shots, opened the scoring at 5:22 of the first period when Jessymaude Drapeau found a rebound in a goalmouth scramble and put the puck past a prone Lajeunesse.
 
McGill knotted the score at 4:51 of the second stanza when defenceman Olivia Pridham of Stouffville, Ont., swooped in from the blueline, took a cross-ice pass from Elizabeth Mura and skated behind the net to score on a wrap-a-round play. It was a career-high fourth goal of the season in 29 games overall for Pridham, an industrial relations senior who now has six goals in 60 career games.
 
Concordia iced the contest less than six minutes later, when Rosalie Parent converted a rebound for what proved to be the winning tally at 10:33.
 
CROSS-GENDER RIVALRY: This week, the university hockey playoffs got underway with a McGill-Concordia match-up in both the OUA men's and RSEQ women's post-season. It marks only the fifth time in history that the cross-town rivals are hooking up in the same season and the first since 2014, when McGill swept both genders. Previous occurrences happened in 2007 (a McGill sweep), 2001 (a Concordia sweep) and in 2000 (McGill men won, Concordia women won),

SAME GENDER RIVALRY: Since women's hockey was sanctioned with a national championship in 1997, these bitter rivals have met 165 times overall and McGill's lifetime record now stands at 90-70-5 against Concordia... They have crossed paths in 12 playoff series prior to this season, with each team winning six... After the Game 1 loss to ConU in the current series, the Martlets now have a 12-11 edge in 23 post-season confrontations with each other...  The teams have met in the Quebec conference semifinals on five previous occasions, with McGill winning each time -- in 2007, 2008,  2009, 2014 and 2019... They have also crossed paths in the Quebec conference final seven times, with McGill winning once (2017) and Concordia winning six times (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2022)... ON THE MEN'S SIDE: McGill is 118-117-14 overall versus the Stingers, including a 23-16 edge in post-season play after winning the current series opener 6-1... The McGill men have won 11 of their previous 17 series with the Stingers.

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SOURCE
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-983-7012 (Tel.)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca