Sport. Education. Fierte. RSEQ

Kathleen Cahoon scored twice and added an assist as the UBC Thunderbirds skated to a hard fought 4-2 decision over McGill, the defending silver medalists, in a sudden-death quarter-final at the CIS women's hockey championship, Thursday. McGill outshot UBC by a wide 34-21 margin but goaltender Danielle Dubecame up big for the T-Birds with a 32-save performance.
 
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB7HFrsdxo0&feature=youtu.be
CHAMPIONSHIP WEBSITE: http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/wice/index
 
UBC, the Canada West champs, advance to Saturday's semifinal round against the No.1 ranked Guelph Gryphons at 4 p.m. Eastern and will be televised on SportsnetONE. McGill will face the St. Thomas University Tommies from Fredericton in a consolation semifinal Friday, March 18 at 1 p.m. Eastern. Both games are available live on the web atwww.cis-sic.tv.
 
McGill fails to advance past the first round for the first time in three years, after finishing second in 2015 and striking gold in 2014. The Canada West winning UBC Thunderbirds are in their first CIS tourney since 2013, where they lost to Toronto in the opening round.

Veteran forwards Gabrielle Davidson and Melodie Daoust scored for the Martlets. But Daoust, the Olympic gold medalist from Chateauguay, Que., was injured in the final minute of play, suffering a suspected shoulder separation after a heavy fall when slewfooted at the UBC blueline by rearguard Mathea Fischer, a 5-foot-6 freshman from Norway. The play went unpenalized and it took a few minutes for Daoust to leave the ice in severe pain, skating gingerly in a bent-over position.
 
"I didn't think we had a great start, there were a lot of missed passes," said McGill head coach Peter Smith. "We came out real strong in the second and got (a key) goal but their third goal kinda hurt us.... In all fairness to our kids, we kept at it all the way to the end. We worked hard, created a fair bit of offence. I would've liked to get the puck inside a little more but there were a few shifts where we got caught up in our own end (and couldn't get out). We don't have a lot of experience on the big (Olympic-sized) ice surface... and that hurt us a little bit.

"Give UBC credit, they played well and they kept us to the inside. Their goaltender played well and when we got our scoring chances, she was their with the save. They were good off the half-wall and had some big bodies coming into the middle there. They got more pucks to the middle than we did. They had a good forecheck... and there were times when we could've had better puck support for our defencemen."

UBC opened the scoring at 7:32 of the opening frame, when Hannah Clayton-Carroll's wrist shot beat Martlets' goaltender Taylor Hough. The T-Birds added a power play goal before the end of the period off the stick of Cahoon to make it 2-0 after 20 minutes.  
 
McGill's Davidson picked up a power play goal in the second, but UBC answered back with a point shot deflected byLogan Boyd to regain a two-goal lead for the T-Birds.
 
An early power play goal from Daoust, the Martlets captain, put McGill back at 3:21 of the final period. The T-Birds sealed the victory with an empty-net goal from Cahoon with 1:45 left on the clock. 
  
"I thought we played pretty well, we had a really good third period," said UBC head coach Graham Thomas. "This team is just really good at playing through adversity, they put a lot of pressure on us, but we fought right to the end. Our goalie played well and our team was opportunistic. It's a really proud moment for our program." 
 
Player of the Game awards went to forward Erika Pyke of the Martlets and UBC goaltender Danielle Dube.

"It's all about pride and respect," answered Smith when asked how his team would respond to an early morning consolation game, just 16 hours after a huge setback. "We've been to the CIS championship many times and haven't really been in this position (of losing the opener) too many times. "We playing for a chance to finish fifth and there is a lot of pride in that room and i believe firmly that we'll come out with a good effort."

 
SCORING SUMMARY
 
Official Boxscore: http://en.cis-sic.ca/championships/wice/2016/boxscores_champ/20160317_x11u.xml
 
 
FIRST PERIOD
 
1. UBC Hannah Clayton-Carroll (1) (Haneet Parhar), 7:32
2. UBC Cahoon (1) (Rebecca Unrau), 12:02 PP
 
PENALTIES:
 
Tardif (UBC) interference, 0:59;
Daoust (MCG) bodychecking, 11:04;
Cahoon (UBC) hooking, 17:11.
 
SECOND PERIOD
 
3. MCG Gabrielle Davidson (1) (Stefanie Pohlod), 5:52 PP
4. UBC Logan Boyd (1) (Kathleen Cahoon), 9:29
 
PENALTIES:
 
Murray (UBC) bodychecking, 4:45;
Sutter (MCG) cross checking, 6:27.
 
THIRD PERIOD
 
5. MCG Melodie Daoust (1) (Gabrielle Davidson), 3:29 PP
6. UBC Kathleen Cahoon (2), 18:15 EN 
 
PENALTIES:
 
Unrau (UBC) hooking, 0:58;
O'Neill (UBC) tripping, 3:10;
Cagianos (MCG) hooking, 8:20;
Lavoie (MCG) roughing, 19:09.
 
GOALS (by period)
UBC 2-1-1: 4
MCG 0-1-1: 2
 
SHOTS ON GOAL (by period)
UBC 6-4-11: 21
MCG 9-16-9: 34
 
POWER PLAY:
UBC 1-4
MCG 2-5
 
GOALTENDERS
UBC – Danielle Dube (W, 1-0, 34 shots, 32 saves, 2 GA, 60:00)
MCG – Taylor Hough (L, 0-1, 20 shots, 17 saves, 3 GA, 59:05)
 
PLAYERS OF THE GAME:
UBC: Danielle Dube
MCG: Erika Pyke
 
ATTENDANCE: 441
REFEREE: Meghan Mallette
LINESMEN: Shannon Kline, Kaylah Kreiger
 
START: 3:01
END: 5:02
LENGTH: 2:01
 
SCHEDULE & RESULTS (all times MOUNTAIN TIME)
 
Thursday,March 17
11:00 Quarter-final 1:  Guelph 3, St. Thomas 0
15:00 Quarter-final 2: UBC 4, McGill 2 
 
Friday, March 18
11:00 Consolation 1: St. Thomas vs. McGill (www.CIS-SIC.tv)  
15:00 Quarter-final 3: No. 6 Western vs. No. 3 Saint Mary's (www.CIS-SIC.tv)  
19:00 Quarter-final 4: No. 7 Calgary vs. No. 2 Montreal (www.CIS-SIC.tv)  
 
Saturday, March 19
10:00 Consolation 2: Loser QF 3 vs. Loser QF 4 (www.CIS-SIC.tv)  
14:00 Semifinal 1: Guelph vs. UBC (Sportsnet ONE / www.CIS-SIC.tv) *  
17:30 Semifinal 2: Winner QF 3 vs. Winner QF 4 (Sportsnet ONE / www.CIS-SIC.tv) *  
 
Sunday, March 20
8:45 Bronze (www.CIS-SIC.tv)
9:00 5th-place game (www.CIS-SIC.tv)  (at Joan Snyder Arena)   
12:30 Final (Sportsnet 360 & TVA Sports 2 / www.CIS-SIC.tv) *  
 
* Webcast of the semifinals & final are on pay-per-view basis.