Hockey Huskies hold off Moncton, head to semis

By GLENN MacDONALD Sports Reporter

February 21, 2010

The Saint Mary’s Huskies are off to the next round in the Atlantic university hockey playoffs.

Justin Munden scored two goals on the same shift in the first period to pace the Huskies to a 4-2 victory over the Moncton Aigles Bleus in Game 2 of their AUS quarter-final Saturday night in Moncton.

No. 3 SMU, which took Game 1 in double overtime on Friday night, swept the series and will face the second-ranked Acadia Axemen in the conference semifinals, which are slated to begin later this week.

"The two goals by Munden got us off to a good start," an exhausted SMU head coach Trevor Stienburg said following the game.

The Huskies’ bus broke down and the team was awaiting another to take them back to Halifax late Saturday night.

"(Moncton) came at us really hard. It’s a good thing we won in regulation. The boys are pretty beat up."

Mike Danton scored on a power play early in the middle frame to give SMU a 3-0 lead.

But two second-period goals brought Moncton to within one heading into the third.

The Huskies withheld the pesky and tenacious Aigles Bleus in the final frame before Cody Thornton sealed the victory with an empty-net marker.

Even in a shortened series there was no shortage of emotions between the teams.

"The refs let everything go," Stienburg said. "They certainly played into (Moncton’s) hands that way. We were hoping for a tighter-called series but we didn’t get it. But the guys persevered and got through it. It got pretty chippy out there."

The other semifinal will feature the CIS No. 1 UNB Varsity Reds against the fifth-seeded St. Francis Xavier X-Men. St. F.X., which swept its quarter-final against the UPEI Panthers, was the only team to defeat UNB during the regular season.

• In women’s action:

X-Women 2, Huskies 1: At Antigonish, Katie Harvieux turned aside 27 shots as St. Francis Xavier squeaked past Saint Mary’s in the second-to-last day of the regular season.

Brittany Perkins and Sidney Ritchie each scored for the X-Women.

St. F.X. (18-2-3) still has a chance to clinch first overall.

The X-Women will need to beat the Dalhousie Tigers this afternoon and have Moncton lose to the St. Thomas Tommies in Fredericton. Those are the only games scheduled today to wrap up the regular season.

Lauren McCusker answered with a power-play goal late in the third for SMU (13-10-1).

Aigles Bleues 4, Mounties 1: At Moncton, the host side beat Mount Allison to improve to 20-2-1 and remain two points ahead of St. F.X.

The X-Women hold the tiebreaker if they are deadlocked with the Aigles Bleues for first following today’s games.

( gmacdonald@herald.ca)