Badgers ready for Rams
There isn’t much to choose from between the Brock Badgers and Ryerson Rams.
The fourth-place Badgers host the fifth-place Rams Thursday at 1 p.m. in Game 1 of their best-of-three Ontario University Athletics women’s hockey quarter-final matchup after splitting a pair of games in the regular season.
The Rams topped the Badgers 2-1 in a shootout Feb. 1 while the Badgers prevailed 4-3 in overtime last month.
“They’re solid. A really well coached team,” Brock coach Margot Page said of the Rams. “A good physical team with some good sharp-shooters. Their depth is good and obviously they’re a very good team to be where they are.
“I think we match up well with them and I think they would probably say the same thing.”
The deciding factors, according to Page, aren’t a surprise.
“You’ve got your goaltending and you’ve got your special teams that will always be so important,” she said. “ In women’s hockey, it’s also adding on that if you can go in with your emotions in check and balanced so that you limit the mistakes you make and capitalize on the other team’s mistakes, that might be a key as well.
“Sometimes you can get away with mistakes and get away with it because of good goaltending, but when it comes to playoffs, I think it comes down to those three things.”
The Badgers finished fourth based on a 10-7 regular season, the highest the club has placed in many seasons.
“Something we always talk about is don’t settle for things,” Page said. “Try and achieve as high as you can go and try and go as far as you can go. Right now we’re happy we’re in the playoffs and had a really, really good season. We’re very proud of our season but now it’s a whole different ball game and let’s not settle. Let’s compete for everything and see how far we can take this.
“We’re not counting out nationals. When you’re in the playoffs, anyone from one to eight can go to nationals so compete hard and maybe it’s us.”
The Badgers obviously want to take advantage of home ice and get off to a strong start with a win in Game 1.
“For us, we need to play a good game, win or lose,” Page said. “I think going into the second game our team will still believe we can compete and play if we play a good game.
“When we play well, we’re pretty darn good. If we’re playing sloppy and our puck management isn’t there and we’re not communicating, we’ll be out pretty quick. You can’t do that in playoffs.”
Game 2 is Saturday in Toronto with Game 3, if necessary, back in St. Catharines Sunday at 7:15 p.m.
Page said the Badgers are looking forward to getting started.
“I’m really proud of the team as to how they got there. We started off slow in our first nine or 10 games and then really buckled down and started playing so really good hockey,” Page said. “We’re young and we don’t know how our group is going to handle it, but they’re a pretty poised group and a pretty tight team. I’m hoping that is something that helps us.”
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