Third Period Offensive Burst Pushes Tommies Past Tigers

Third Period Offensive Burst Pushes Tommies Past Tigers
Box Score

An offensive burst in the third period pushed the St. Thomas University Tommies past the Dalhousie Tigers 5-1 in AUS women's hockey action Sunday afternoon at the Grant-Harvey Centre.

Kelty Apperson, the Subway Player of the Game, recorded a hat trick in the win, while teammates Lauren Henman and Alex Woods rounded out the scoring with one goal apiece.

Rebecca Chilvers was the lone goal scorer for the Tigers.

The Tommies opened the scoring at 16:21 when Henman tucked an Eliza Snider rebound to the back of the net on the power play.

The Tigers came out strong in the second and dominated possession. Despite outshooting the Tommies 13-9 in the frame, the Tigers continued to trail 1-0 after 40 minutes.

"Our whole pre-game was about being the underdog and how DAL has nothing to lose," Tommies head coach Peter Murphy said. "They are going to play desperate and they can because there's literally nothing to lose."

The third brought on a flood of offense for the Tommies.

Apperson started things off with a power play goal at 4:29, beating Tigers netminder Mati Barrett in front. Woods followed suit, potting her second goal of the season to put the Tommies up 3-0.

"That line got rewarded. It was just a grinding type goal," Murphy said.  "They kicked the puck out from the pile to someone who could get a good shot at it, and Woods was able to put it in."

With just under four minutes to go, the Tigers pulled Barrett in favour of the extra attacker and the Tommies capitalized as Apperson netted her second goal of the game.

The Tigers got one back on their next rush from Chilvers, who beat Tommies goaltender Abby Clarke to cut the deficit to 4-1.

"DAL has a tendency to score in scrambles," Murphy said. "That was something we knew that if they were going to score that was likely how they were going to score."

Apperson added her second empty netter—and third goal of the game—at 18:43 to secure the win for the Tommies.

The Tommies improve to 14-1-1 on the season while the Tigers drop to 3-11.

Both teams are back in action Saturday, January 14 as the Tommies host the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers and the Tigers host the St. Mary's Huskies.