The Carleton Ravens women’s hockey team fell to the Université de Montréal Carabins with a score of 4-1 on Jan. 26, and then were defeated by the McGill Martlets 1-0 on Jan. 28, in their final home game of the 2017-18 season.
Against Montreal, the first period went by with both teams holding each other at bay. The Carabins outshot the Ravens 10-5 in the opening period.
Carabins forward Catherine Dubois opened up the scoring halfway into the second period, when she fired the puck into the back of the net past Ravens goaltender, Summer Roberts while on the power play.
The game then entered the third period, where the Carabins would assert their dominance over the Carleton squad. Carabins forward Laurie Mercier would extend the Carabins lead four minutes into the period, as she sent the puck into the net.
The Ravens were able to spark some hope as defenseman Jennifer Semkowski fired a shot past the Carabins goaltender, cutting the lead to 2-1.
Less than one minute later, Carabins forward Frédérike Cyr extended the Carabins lead once again. Carabins forward Jessica Cormier followed that up with a shot of her own, sealing the victory for Montreal and giving them the 4-1 win.
The Carabins defence shut down any offensive pressure that the Ravens were able to muster, only allowing 14 shots throughout the game, while putting up 41 of their own.
Before taking on the McGill Martlets at the Ice House, both teams stood at centre ice and took the time to honor Ravens defenseman Valerie Bouillon with a ceremony honouring her last game as a Raven.
“I know it’s not my last game with the Ravens jersey, but it’s where it started. It all started there three years ago, I was not bilingual, I didn’t know what to expect, but it was such a journey,” said Bouillon. “All the girls here made me feel like it was my day, and we did one of our best games in the past few games and, I was really happy about that.”
The game against McGill quickly settled into a defensive slog, as both teams failed to score in the full 60 minutes of regulation, resulting in the game going to overtime. The Martlets led the shot totals, putting up 23 shots with Carleton just behind with 18 of their own.
After a delay of game penalty given to the Ravens the Martlets took the ice with an extra skater late in overtime. Martlets defenseman Cassidy Bell would seal the victory for McGill when she sent the puck past Ravens goaltender Katelyn Steele.
“I think we did bounce back today. We did bounce back from a loss on Friday. Friday was not a bad game, it was 2-1 with a couple of minutes left, but then we just left our man once and they made us pay. Today was 65 minutes of hard work,” said Ravens head coach Pierre Alain.
The Ravens special teams, or lack thereof, continue to hurt the team as they went 0-for-7 with the extra skater over the weekend. The team’s power play has only managed to put up two goals in their 67 power play chances this season.
The Ravens record has now fallen to 3-13-1, meaning the team will end their season in fifth and final place in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) division for the fifth year in a row.
The Carleton Ravens play their next games on the road on Feb. 4 and 8, when they take on the Concordia Stingers and the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees.
Photo by Dan Robertson
