Edmonton - It may have taken 15 seasons, some extra time, and a shootout, but the Lethbridge Pronghorns have finally earned a win against the No.7 Alberta Pandas with a 4-3 shootout decision Friday night at Clare Drake Arena in Edmonton.
Boxscore
Forward Shelby Ballendine and defender Amy Van Buskirk each had a goal and an assist in the victory, with Van Buskirk also netting the deciding goal in the shootout to end the decade-and-a-half long streak. Rookie forward Kirsten Reeves scored a single.
Alberta’s Sarah Hilworth and Nicole Pratt also notched a goal and an assist each while team-leading scorer Monika Moskalski added a pair of helpers. Third-year forward Janelle Malcolm also tallied for the Pandas.
Entering the game with 52 wins, three ties, and zero losses in conference play against the Pronghorns, Alberta opened the scoring on a shorthanded marker by Hilworth, going in alone from the Lethbridge blueline and putting a slapshot-wrister top shelf behind ‘Horns netminder Crystal Patterson just 3:47 into the game.
On the same power-play, however, the visitors evened the score at the 5:10 mark of the first when Ballendine, the team’s leading scorer with six points on the season, fired a shot off the far post and in.
Just 18 seconds later, the Pronghorns pulled ahead when Pandas goaltender Michala Jeffries went out of her net to play the puck, tripping upon her return to leave a wide-open cage for Reeves to fire into from the top of the faceoff circle.
Answering back with 3:03 left in the middle frame, Alberta’s Malcolm, parked on the doorstep, received a beautiful pass out from the corner from linemate Katie Stewart to snap it past Patterson.
Yet the ‘Horns got another one-goal lead in the third when a Van Buskirk point shot pinballed off a couple of Alberta players before finding its way over the goal line, the Brandon, MB native notching her first goal of the season on the man-advantage at the 6:33 mark.
Sensing the potential streak-breaking loss, the Pandas poured on the offensive pressure and, with a power-play of their own, tied things up again on a rising slapshot from Pratt at the Pronghorns’ blueline with 8:03 left to go.
The 10-minute overtime period featured more of the same intensity from Alberta, but the home team was unable to create a perfect chance or get a lucky bounce. A late penalty by the Pandas in extra time almost decided the game then and there, but a strong defensive effort led by multiple shot blocks by several Alberta players kept things knotted at three leading to the shootout.
To her credit, goalkeeper Kaitlyn Chapman, who replaced Jeffries at the start of the second period, did her part by making a miraculous save off of Ballendine with her blocker, but Patterson’s saves off of Karla Bourke and Katie Borbely, as well as a Hilworth deke ringing off the iron, left the door open for Van Buskirk’s historic act.
With the final shot of the three-round shootout and deking multiple times, the rearguard got Chapman to do the splits and managed to sneak the puck over the end of her left pad to end the game.
Lethbridge went 2-6 on the power-play and allowed a short-handed goal while Alberta, who had 23 straight attempts without a goal in the last five games, went 1-3.
The 2-1-4 Pandas will face off against the 5-2-0 Pronghorns in game two of the weekend series tomorrow night at 7 PM MT.
