In their first game of their weekend road trip, the Lancer women's hockey team brought the heat and defeated the host Laurier Golden Hawks 4-1 at the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex.
 
The win keeps the Lancers undefeated in 2023, and marks their fourth straight regular season victory. They are now 9-3-1-4 on the season, heading into Saturday's game at Western.  
 
STATS
Keana McKibbin, Elissa Benjamin, Mia DiNardo, and Maggi DeWolf-Russ all notched goals for the Lancers, while Kristen Swiatoschik stopped 28 of 29 shors for a close to perfect night.
 
GAME FLOW
The Lancers hit the ice looking to keep their win streak alive, and kicked things off right less than two minutes into the period. Aubrey Lefler sent the puck into the Laurier zone and Keana McKibbon was able to find the rebound off multiple Golden Hawk players in front of the net for Windsor's first goal of the game and her 9th goal of the season.
 
As the Golden Hawks looked for the equalizer, the Lancers tightened up their defense and Swiatoschik redirected Laurier's Olivia MacMillan's shot on net. Elissa Benjamin successfully stickhandled the puck as she cut Chloe Davidson off at the pass and shortly after grabbed the Lancers another goal off the draw. At the end of the period, the Lancers had outshot the Hawks 17-5 and headed into the first intermission up 2-0.
 
In the second frame, Windsor saw a continued battled against the Golden Hawks as they started to increase the physicality. Maggi DeWolf-Russ caused some trouble for the Golden Hawks with a scoring chance early in the period but Hawks goaltender Acadia Carlson was able to clear it away. With lots of action in front of Carlson, the blue and gold put in the effort to keep Laurier second guessing their every move and remain in control of the game. The Golden Hawks attempted to find their momentum after a Rylee Crego's shot went bouncing but play seemed to run in the blue and gold's favour and they could not capitalize. Windsor remained up 2-0 over the Golden Hawks after forty minutes of play.
 
The third period had the Golden Hawks get to work in hopes of finding a goal while the Lancers engaged on the defensive side. Looking to open up the scoring, Mia DiNardo was able to get past Carlson and give Windsor a 3-0 lead. Laurier was able to come out on the powerplay and attempt to make a counterplay in the Lancer zone as Arielle MacDonald almost snuck past Swiatoschik but misplayed the shot. After a quick timeout by the Golden Hawks head coach Kelly Paton, MacDonald was able to make the shot and put the Hawks on the board. DeWolf-Russ added an empty net insurance marker with less than two minutes remaining to secure the win for the blue and gold.
 
UP NEXT
Windsor will now head to London to face the Western Mustangs in a mid-afternoon match-up. The puck drops at 3:00pm and can be seen live at oua.tv.