Fifth-year forward Kassie Roache scored three goals in leading the University of Toronto Varsity Blues women's hockey team to a 3-2 victory in Game 3 of their OUA quarter-final series on Sunday evening (Feb. 24) at Varsity Arena.
PLAYOFF PUSH: With the win, the Blues advance to the OUA semifinals and will take on the second-seeded Western Mustangs in a best-of-three series next week. Game schedule is TBD.
HOW IT HAPPENED: Roache opened the scoring midway through the first period. The Corunna, Ont., native buried a rebound off a Cristine Chao point shot on the powerplay. The Blues were up 1-0 after 20 minutes of action.
The Lakers evened the score early in the second period as Jade Gauthier sent a wide-angled shot into the bottom right corner of the net.
The game turned into a physical affair and, after Nipissing got back-to-back penalties, Roache scored her second powerplay goal of the game, tipping in a Jana Headrick point shot midway through the second period.
Nipissing responded though as Maria Dominico buried a rebound with 3:35 to go in the period to even the score at 2-2 at the second intermission.
8:39 into the third period, Roache received a centering pass from linemate Louie Bieman in the high slot. The criminology and sociology major made no mistake, one-timing the puck through traffic to be Lakers netminder Danika Ranger.
First-year Blues netminder Erica Fryer made 16 saves, including a short-handed breakaway in the dying seconds of the first period and a nice save on a 2-on-1 late in the second period.
For more information, scores and highlights on your favourite U of T athletes and teams, please visit
www.varsityblues.ca. Don't forget to follow us on
Twitter,
Instagram,
SnapChat and
Facebook for the latest and greatest in Varsity Blues intercollegiate athletics.
