The No. 8 University of Toronto Varsity Blues women's hockey team defeated the No. 4 seeded St. Thomas Tommies, 2-1, in consolation semi-final action at the 2019 U SPORTS championship on Saturday afternoon in Charlottetown.
UP NEXT: With the win, the Blues advance to tomorrow's consolation final and will take on the Manitoba Bisons for fifth place. Puck drop is scheduled for 10 a.m. EST.
FROM PLAYER OF THE GAME LAUREN STRAATMAN: "It's 100 percent heart out there. After last night, we held our heads pretty high. We knew we gave them a good fight and that we played with everything we had so coming out today we had to prove to ourselves that we're not done, we deserve to be here and I think we did just that."
HOW IT HAPPENED: It was a penalty-filled affair in the two teams first-ever meeting but it wasn't until Toronto's fifth powerplay that they opened the scoring. Fifth-year forward Kassie Roache banged home a third rebound with 44 seconds remaining in the first period.
St. Thomas responded right away though as Alex Woods scored on the man advantage with just 16 seconds to go. The two teams were deadlocked at 1-1 after 20 minutes of action.
Toronto regained the lead midway through the second period as Mathilde De Serres made a nice deke to beat a Tommies defenceman and backhanded the puck past STU netminder Abby Clarke.
First-year Blues netminder Erica Fryer made 11 saves in the win.
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2019 U SPORTS Women's Hockey Championship Schedule/Results
Thursday, March 14Â
Quarter-Final #1: Guelph 3, Manitoba 2
Quarter-Final #2: Montreal 3, UPEI 0
Friday, March 15
Quarter-Final #3: Toronto 3, Alberta 2
Quarter-Final #4: McGill 10, St. Thomas 2
Saturday, March 16
Consolation Semifinal 1: Manitoba 3, UPEI 1
Consolation Semifinal 2: Toronto 2, St. Thomas 1
Semifinal 1: Montreal vs Guelph, 3 p.m. EST
Semifinal 2: Alberta vs McGill, 6 p.m. EST
Sunday, March 17
Consolation Final, Manitoba vs Toronto 10 a.m. EST
Bronze Medal Game, 1:30 p.m. EST
Gold Medal Game, 5 p.m. EST
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