2015-16 National Women's Development Team

MACAULAY, HEALEY AND LEFORT LEAD GOLD TO FIRST CAMP VICTORY

KARA SPADY

CALGARY, Alta. – Goals from Shannon MacAulay (Mount Herbert, P.E.I./Clarkson University, ECAC), Jessica Healey (Edmonton, Alta./University of Minnesota Duluth, WCHA) and Sarah Lefort (Ormstown, Que./Boston University, HE) led Gold to a 3-2 win over Blue on Saturday night at Canada’s National Women’s Development Team selection camp.

Despite losing tonight’s game, Blue still won the three-game intrasquad series two games to one.

Gold opened the scoring 4:28 into the first period, when Erin Ambrose (Keswick, Ont./Clarkson University, ECAC) found MacAulay at the bottom of the circle, where she snapped the puck below Shea Tiley’s (Shallow Lake, Ont./Clarkson University, ECAC) glove.

Gold ran into penalty trouble in the second, getting whistled for three minors in a row, but Blue was unable to take advantage of any of its power plays.

A scoreless second period proved to be the calm before the storm of the third.

Minutes into the final period, Healey received a pass from Kristyn Capizzano (Oakville, Ont./Boston College, HE) on the tape and fired a shot from the point, giving Gold its second goal.

From there penalties would haunt both teams.

With seconds left in a two-man advantage, Lefort grabbed Emma Korbs’s (Toronto, Ont./Dartmouth College, ECAC) rebound to widen Gold’s lead.

With just less than seven minutes to go in the third Blue finally started to mount a comeback. Sarah Nurse (Hamilton, Ont./University of Wisconsin, WCHA) headed in on a breakaway, only to have her stick slashed by Ivana Bilic (Coquitlam, B.C./Bemidji State University, WCHA). Nurse capitalized on the ensuing penalty shot.

Blue finally found a way past Gold’s strong penalty killing to get the deficit down to one, as Stephanie Sucharda (Mississauga, Ont./Mississauga, PWHL), placed the puck perfectly above Erica Howe’s (Orleans, Ont./Brampton, CWHL) glove with four minutes to play.

Canada’s National Women’s Development Team will be named Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015. The team will then practice twice before flying to Lake Placid, N.Y., for a three-game series against the United States.