GUELPH, Ont. – The Guelph Gryphons women's hockey team is one win away from another McCaw Cup berth. The No.1-seeded Gryphons showed an array of skilled finishing and great goaltending to hold off the Ryerson Rams for a hard-earned 4-2 win in Game 1 of the OUA semi-final Wednesday night at Gryphon Centre Arena.
Guelph got its biggest test of the postseason to date but the veteran team showed its poise against a Ryerson lineup that was aggressive, especially with its relentless forecheck.
Madison Melo,
Miranda Lantz,
Claire Merrick, and captain
Kaitlin Lowy scored for Guelph, while
Valerie Lamenta was outstanding in net, making 30 saves.
Merrick scored her fourth of the postseason at 7:52 of the third period on a fantastic effort that ultimately proved to be the winning goal. She carried the puck from the left boards into the slot before unleashing a high backhander past Ryerson goalie Fanny Vigeant to make it 3-1. It was a huge goal because the Rams would score under three minutes later with a Lauren Nicholson one-timer on a Rams' power play.
Lowy would ice the game at the 13:19 mark, depositing a laser into the top left corner that Vigeant had no chance of stopping.
Lamenta was huge throughout the first half of the game, making several key saves including a sequence where she stopped an Avery Horlock breakaway and then a high wrister in the low slot from Brooklyn Gemmill.
Ryerson continued to push and finally got one past the star netminder when Tori Butler scored on a shot from the left point at 13:23.
That was the first goal the Gryphons gave up this postseason after Lamenta had shutout the Brock Badgers in consecutive games in the opening round.
Guelph regrouped quickly and made the Rams pay on a power play as Lantz got to the net and made an incredible spin-o-rama with a backhand finish on Vigeant just over two minutes later that temporarily quieted an energetic group of travelling Ryerson fans.
Sydney Davison and
Gabrielle Smyth assisted on the play.
The game started 15 minutes late as Ryerson were delayed on the road because of the weather. But the energy level was high early, especially from the hosts, who were a noisy bunch during a pregame warmup in the far corner of the Gryphon Centre.
Ryerson started with an excellent first couple of shifts but Guelph began to apply pressure and eventually struck first just 5:17 into the first period. The Rams won a faceoff in their own end but then gifted the puck to Melo, who made no mistake down low, burying a low shot through Vigeant.
The Gryphons cashed in on both of their power-play chances. Ryerson outshot the hosts 32-24.
Gryphon Take
"It's huge. We have the momentum now. We just need to win one more game and we book a ticket to the championship."
"We have a really deep team and we build off each other really well. Whenever someone makes a good play, our energy is always high.
We want each other to do well and we encourage each other."
– fourth-year forward Claire Merrick
"They cycle the puck the really well in zone and we talked about it in between the second and third. When they push, it's hard to stop them. We did a better job in the third period. Even when we had possession, it's really tough to get pucks out because of the way they forecheck. It's something that we were prepared for but we still need to look at it, especially going into their rink, which is a little bit smaller."
"It's hard to put a team away but it's harder to play two games back-to-back where your season is on the line. It's a big win for us. I thought our rink was advantage tonight for sure. We looked fast. By Friday, I feel like they're going to be tired. Their last series was long and lots of travel and went into overtime at least two of the three games. Hopefully, we can take advantage of that. I feel like we're pretty well rested."
– head coach Rachel Flanagan
The Record
Guelph is 3-0 in the postseason.
Next up
OUA SF Game 2 @ Ryerson, Friday, March 1, 7:15pm
