Stanford and Tommies Force Game Three Against Reds

Stanford and Tommies Force Game Three Against Reds
Box Score

Fredericton, NB- In a must win game against their cross-campus rivals, the University of New Brunswick Reds, the St. Thomas University Tommies forced a game three in their best of three Atlantic University Sport quarter-final matchup with a 2-1 double overtime win.

Brooke Stanford (Whitby, ON) was the double overtime hero, scoring her first career AUS goal in the timeliest of fashion.

"Well she got our player of the game that we give out and it was her first AUS goal, so we were excited for her," said Tommies head coach Peter Murphy. "Especially how she got, where a few shifts before her goal she had a shot blocked and she came to the bench and Gen [David] talked to her about it and she did exactly what she said. She held it a bit longer and scored. She has really come a long way in her second year."

The Tommies opened the scoring on their first shot of the game, 2:04 into the first period when Isabelle Thomson-Fiddes (North Saanich, BC) found fellow rookie Erin Arsenault (Oakville, ON) on the rush and Arsenault redirected the puck past UNB netminder Kendra Woodland (Kamloops, BC). Woodland would turn away 42 shots on the night in the loss.

Just five minutes after Arsenault's goal UNB's Ashley Stratton (Mount Pearl, NL) would tie the game on the powerplay.

The two teams would then combine to play 69 minutes and 36 seconds of scoreless hockey before Stanford would win it for the Tommies.

Rookie Caroline Pietroski would stop 28 shots for the win.

"It was good to get to game three," said Murphy. "The biggest thing will be that we know they are going to up their effort going into that game. They upped their game today from Thursday and they played much better than they did, and we knew we were going to have to match or exceed. We are two very evenly matched squads this year."

The Tommies will now head to the Aitken Centre on Monday for an "away" game with puck drop at 7:00pm. The winner will move on to the semi-finals, where the StFX X-Women and the St. Mary's Huskies are waiting.