The women’s hockey team had a mixed weekend against the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Ridgebacks. On Saturday, the Gaels beat the Ridgebacks 1-0 in overtime and lost 4-0 on Sunday. Kelsey Thomson scored the team’s only goal, her third this season and her 50th as a Gael.
Goaltender Mel Dodd-Moher said she wasn’t happy about the games from the weekend.
“A weekend like that, we should be coming out with … four decisive points,” she said. “I know we won our first game but it was too close. It shouldn’t be that close.”
The Gaels have a 3-3 record and sit fifth in the OUA. UOIT sits just beneath them at sixth.
“I don’t think we were focused enough,” Dodd-Moher said. “It’s not that we don’t have enough talent on our team, but I think it’s more of a mental game right now.”
Dodd-Moher, who played on Saturday, made a crucial save in the third period and now has two shutouts in the Gaels’ young season.
“I’m happy with [my individual play], but it’s a team game,” she said. “I’m happy to help out the team as much as I can … throughout the season, there will be times when they save me too. We’re going to have to work on the whole team, and I’ll try to just keep doing what I’m doing.”
Head coach Matthew Holmberg has a similar view of last weekend. He said both goaltenders were effective and that a factor in Sunday’s loss was the amount of shots Karissa Savage faced.
“It was basically a tale of two different games,” he said. “The first game on Saturday, we heavily outshot them, and even though I thought we could have played better, we came away with the win. Two points on the road is always a good thing. Sunday, unfortunately, we just didn’t show up to play and UOIT took advantage of that.”
The Gaels had 40 shots on net in the Saturday game and only 24 shots the following day. The team has experienced difficulty scoring recently. Thomson’s overtime goal on Saturday was their only goal in the last three games.
“Right now, everyone seems to be stuck in a bit of a scoring slump,” he said. “We’re going to work on things this week to get us ready for the weekend.”
The Gaels continue their season with games against the Guelph Gryphons and Brock Badgers. The Gryphons are third in OUA and the Badgers sit at fourth.
This weekend offers an exciting rematch between Guelph and Queen’s after the Gryphons acted as spoilers in the Gaels’ playoff dreams last season.
“We’re looking for some revenge against Guelph; they’re the team that knocked us out of the playoffs last year, so we should have plenty of motivation against them, and we can’t take Brock lightly,” Holmberg said. “[Guelph] started the season very strong and [they] have a very good goaltender. We expect there will be two good battles this weekend.”
The Gaels play the Guelph Gryphons at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Memorial Centre. On Sunday, they face the Brock Badgers at 2:30 p.m.
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