The Queens fall to second place with a one-goal loss to the Ooks

Red Deer, February 25, 2023 – The NAIT Ooks win the rematch on Saturday night against the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens and now sit in first place in the conference.

Last night was quite the game as the Queens battled back to take a 3-2 road victory which places them tied for first place with their opponent for tonight.

The Ooks would open the scoring on their first shot of the game. Forward Darby Robertson (Personal Fitness Trainer) would one-time home a pass from forward Sierra Meroniuk, also a Personal Fitness Trainer student. This would be back-to-back nights that NAIT opened up the scoring in the first five minutes of the game.

Forward Natalie Buttle (Bachelor of Kinesiology) would pick up the free puck, shoot and score after Queens defense Kassy Gaudette (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) passed the puck into the slot. This was Gaudette's first assist of the year.

At the end of the first, the Queens slightly were outshooting the Ooks 9-4.

No scoring happened in the second period, but the Polytechnic continued to outshoot the visiting NAIT Ooks 18-11.

The Ooks would end the scoreless drought four minutes into the third period as forward Bre Martin (Bachelor of Technology) would snipe a backhanded goal as she cut off the boards and skated towards the net.

Head Coach Kelly Coulter explained it was the simple things that did not go our way tonight.

"They scored two goals off faceoff plays. It just comes down to executing the small details which is what the Ooks were able to do on the faceoffs. This was the biggest difference. We had a lot of scoring chances so we just got to be more hungry when it comes to putting the puck in the back of the net."

This would be the winning goal as the Ooks overtook first place with a 2-1 victory over the Queens. Defense Maddy Rutz (Personal Fitness Trainer) was named the Ooks player of the game. For the Queens in the loss, defense Alesha Santos was named the player of the game for her team.

The Queens will be back in action Thursday night in Olds as they take on the Olds College Broncos. The Ooks will be in Lloydminster on Friday night as they battle the Lakeland College Rustlers at 7 pm.