Woodland, Oitomen Lead REDS To Win

(FREDERICTON, NB) Sydney Oitomen (Mississauga, ON) scored twice and Kendra Woodland made 28 saves as the UNB REDS shut-out the Saint Mary's Huskies 3-0 on Thursday night, taking a two-games-to-none lead in their best of five Atlantic University Sport women's hockey semi-final series.

Woodland's shut-out earned her Tim Horton's Player of the Game honours.

"It takes everybody to be at the top of their game, me included," she said. "I've got to have their back as much as they have mine, so for them to pot a few goals, really, really, good goals, I had to be on the top of my game to back them up tonight."

The home team opened the scoring in the most unlikely of ways, while killing off a two-skater advantage.

With the REDS playing 3 on 5, Oitomen stole the puck near the Huskies blue line, raced in alone and beat Saint Mary's goalie Ridleigh Hansen (Red Deer, AB) to stake UNB to a 1-0 lead.

"I just decided to play that one a bit more aggressive," said Oitomen. "Usually I'm a bit timid, but I caught them on a bad pass and went down and scored."

Less than two minutes later, working even strength, Melanie Drost (Nepean, ON) and Reagan Minor (Dunnville, ON) broke in on a two-on-one.

Drost fed Minor who beat a moving Hansen to double UNB's lead.

In the second period, Oitomen scored her second of the game and third of the series, pouncing on a loose puck to the right of Hansen and pushing it into the Huskies net.

The REDS shut down the Huskies in the third on route to the 3-0 win.

"We know we have a hard road ahead of us," said Huskies' captain Caleigh Meraw (Red Deer, AB). "We didn't help ourselves out there for just a couple of minutes, but we know that we're totally capable of coming back and taking three games straight, so there's a lot of positivity and excitement to get back home and get going."

The REDS are now one game from advancing to the conference final for the third consecutive season.

"We're three periods away from playing in another national championship, the third in five season, six seasons, so it's an amazing feeling in there right now," said Woodland. "We have a lot of momentum moving into Sunday."

The third game of this series goes Sunday evening at SMU's Dauphinee Centre, in Halifax. Game time is 7:00pm.

"We have to come ready to play," said Oitomen. "We're dialed in right now, we've got so much momentum, so we're going to go out there and we're going to kill it."

RECAP BY: Andy Campbell/UNB Athletics

PHOTOS BY: James West/for UNB Athletics