LIONS TAKE ON MUSTANGS IN OUA WOMEN’S HOCKEY SEMIS

The York University Lions women's hockey team will face off against the Western Mustangs in a best-of-three OUA semifinal series this weekend.

Game 1 is set for Friday (Feb. 24) at Canlan Ice Sports beginning at 7pm, and Game 2 will go on Saturday (Feb. 25) at Thompson Arena in London, Ont., at 2:30pm. Should a third game be necessary, the series will shift back to Canlan for the deciding contest beginning at 2pm on Sunday (Feb. 26).

The Lions, who finished fifth in the OUA standings in the regular season, earned home ice advantage for the second round of the playoffs thanks to a trio of upsets in the first round. The Lions completed the last one, taking out the defending OUA champion Queen's Gaels, seeded fourth, in their Game 3 overtime thriller. One day earlier, the sixth-place Mustangs upset the third-seeded Toronto Varsity Blues with two straight wins, and the seventh-seeded Windsor Lancers turned the same trick on the second-place Guelph Gryphons to also advance.

The two teams were evenly matched in the regular season. They both finished with 13 wins and the Lions finished ahead by one point in the standings because of an overtime loss earlier in the year. Over the course of the 26 games the Mustangs scored three more goals (72 to 69) and allowed two less (72 to 74), while winning the head-to-head match-up two games to one. The squads split the two games, with the home team winning by a 2-1 score each time, and the Mustangs ended the season with a 4-1 win at Canlan.

The Lions come into the series on a huge high after team captain Chloe Milano (Maple, Ont.) moved the team into the second round of the playoffs for the first time under head coach Dan Church with the series-clinching goal in double overtime at Kingston Memorial Arena this past Sunday. The goal was her third of the series and her fourth point, and helped earn her OUA female athlete of the week honours.

Rookie goaltender Megan Lee (Orillia, Ont.) was stellar between the pipes in the series and was a big reason why the Lions are still alive in the post-season. She started all three games, earning the two wins in the first and third games, and made 38 saves in the final contest as the Lions were outshot 40-30 in the contest.

Also stellar in the quarter-final series was Lisa Stathopulos (Toronto), who had five points in three games, the second-best total among all players in the post-season.

All three of the Lions' games in the first round were decided by just a single goal and in dramatic fashion. They won the first thanks to a goal on a short-handed penalty shot by Katrina Tollis (Hamilton, Ont.) mid-way through the third period that made the score 4-3 after they had coughed up a three-goal lead, and Queen's won the second by a score of 3-2 when a Lions goal at the final buzzer was waved off after the referees ruled it crossed the goal line after time had run out. Milano was the hero in the third game, another 3-2 final.

The Mustangs made quicker work of the Varsity Blues, winning 4-1 at Toronto and 3-2 in their home rink for the win. They trailed just once in the series, for less than nine minutes in the second game when the Varsity Blues took a 2-1 lead mid-way through the third period before the Mustangs tied it with three minutes remaining and then won in overtime on a goal by Carly Rolph (Guelph, Ont.). They have now won eight of their last nine games dating back to a 3-2 overtime win over Waterloo in mid-January.

Western forward Lindsay Gidomski (Mississauga, Ont.) recorded just seven points in 26 games in the regular season but notched four in the Mustangs' two-game series with the Varsity Blues to lead all players on her team. She scored the eventual game-winner in the second contest as part of a three-point night and also tallied a goal in the first game.

The winner of this OUA semifinal match-up will advance to the OUA championship best-of-three series next week against either the top-seeded Laurier Golden Hawks or the Windsor Lancers.