WATERLOO, Ont. – With over 2,000 fans in attendance as part of Laurier's 'school day' game on Thursday afternoon at the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex, the No. 6-ranked Gryphons women's hockey team silenced the crowd with an impressive 4-1 road win over the Laurier Golden Hawks. After falling behind 1-0 in the opening period of play, the No. 6-ranked Gryphons responded with four unanswered goals, including two from third-year forward
Chihiro Suzuki, to help the Gryphons remain atop the OUA West Division standings.
Meeting for the second time in six days, the Gryphons arrived in Waterloo looking to avenge a 1-0 overtime loss to the Golden Hawks back on Friday, Nov. 17 in Guelph. The Gryphon special teams units were the story on Thursday in Waterloo, where an early puck drop (11am start time) saw over 2,000 local elementary school students on hand for Laurier's 2023 'School Day' game. In the 2nd period, with the Laurier leading 1-0, the Gryphons were able to kill off back to back power play opportunities for the Golden Hawks to keep it a one-goal game. Shortly after that, the Gryphons would start to go to work with some power play opportunities of their own.
After
Maya Graham's wrist shot hit the cross bar,
Katherine Heard was able to score on the rebound for her 2nd goal of the season to tie the game at 1-1.
The Gryphons would score their second power play goal of the period a few minutes later, when Gryphons third-year forward,
Chihiro Suzuki, jammed home her 3rd goal of the season to give Guelph a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes of play. In the 3rd period, Suzuki would score her second of the game and 4th of the season, with the Yokohoma, Japan native firing a quick shot right off the faceoff past Laurier goalie, Acadia Carlson, to put Guelph up 3-1.
Rylee Davison would cap off the scoring for the Gryphons on the day, joining the rush and firing home a perfectly place wrist shot into the top corner for her 1st of the season to put Guelph up 4-1.
With the 4-1 win, the Gryphons improve to 9-1-2 (wins-losses-OTL/SOL) on the season and now have 27 points, while Laurier falls to 8-4-0 and sit in 2nd-place in the OUA West Division standings with 21 points, 6 points back of Guelph. Next up for the Gryphons, another road game, this time in Thorold, Ontario on Saturday, where they will face the Brock Badgers (5-4-2). The Gryphons defeated Brock 4-1 back on Nov. 2 when the two teams met in Guelph. Puck drop on Saturday (Nov. 25) at Canada Games Park is set for 4pm and can be seen live online at
www.oua.tv.
