(Photo: Riley Trujillo/WCSN)
Like the Sun Devils were the last time they faced Grand Canyon, the Arizona State women’s hockey team found themselves shorthanded in overtime against the team’s cross-town rival Friday night. This time, though, the Devils came out on top as freshman Kat Jones buried a rebound to seal a 1-0 victory for ASU.
The season’s fifth edition of the Arizona State and Grand Canyon women’s hockey rivalry lived up to the hype it has quickly come to grow, the third game of the season between the two teams to go into overtime and the fourth to be decided by just one goal.
After 60 minutes, neither team had scored and both goalies had made several impressive saves, but the Sun Devils’ heart pulled away at the end.
“I don’t think we’ve ever played with that much heart all season,” Jones said. “It was amazing, it was determination. We wanted it more, so we capitalized.”
In each of the first two periods, ASU had twice as many shots as GCU, then three times as many in the third period. Each team’s inability to score was in large part due to the outstanding goaltending on each end of the ice.
ASU’s Jordan Nash-Boulden recorded her second career shutout, saving all 24 shots she faced.
“I think I was seeing the puck well,” the goalie said. “It felt like early on, I didn’t get too many shots but the ones I did see were staying with good rebound control so it’s always easier when you can play from a position where you feel comfortable and you’re not fighting the puck… All of the credit goes out to my defense in this one, they played a heck of a game.”
Playing with only four defenseman in the series opener, and even at times just three, the blue line held strong all night long.
On the other end of the ice, GCU’s Haylee Gannaway stopped 44 of the 45 pucks that came her way.
“Haylee was absolutely outside her mind, she’s great,” Sun Devils assistant coach Kaley Marino said. “She’s competitive, which I love about her, the compete factor. She made it hard on us, absolutely hard on us, so that was hard-fought.”
A moment of silence was held before the game, as both teams honored Gannaway, whose father recently passed away.
“My heart goes out to the goalie on the other team, she played a tremendous game and she lost her father so there’s so many other things going on,” Nash-Boulden said. “It was a little bigger than hockey tonight and I’m proud of her for all of the effort she put in. It was pretty sweet to pull this one out.”
For the entire game, the Devils controlled the pace of play, more so than in almost any game this season. With new lines, the team displayed a previously unseen level of effort that translated to the victory.
“We have a bunch of gals who really want the puck on their stick and really want to score, and so those ones are getting rewarded,” Marino said. “Sometimes that’s hard as a younger group, sometimes it’s hard to catch that, but its effort. If you’re going out there and you’re playing hard we’re just going to keep putting you out there.”
Despite going on the penalty kill with less than three minutes remaining in overtime, ASU maintained the same level of intensity it had to that point even though there was a disadvantage.
“We don’t want to go into overtime and f******* lose,” Marino said. “We decided to go out there and keep playing the way we were, so we weren’t worried at all… But it was a great game. Whether it was win or lose at that point, we had done everything that we could.”
Strong defense and a desire to defend their home ice were keys to pulling out the success that the Devils did.
“Obviously we’ve been burned a couple of times by this team and we really wanted to go out there and make a statement that we were here first, especially in our home rink,” Nash-Boulden said. “We weren’t going to let them come out and walk over us. It came from a place where we were all fired up but it wasn’t anger, it wasn’t revenge. It was we’re going to go out there and win this game because we can and that really pushed us through.”
The game-winning goal for Jones was her 12th of the season, which tied the record Amber Galles set last season. The goal also broke ASU’s record for points in a single season of 19, which had been previously set by Galles and KC McGinley last season.
“It means a lot to me,” Jones said of the accomplishment. “Coming into the season, I had a lot of goals for myself, but I never thought I’d find myself here. I’m really proud of all that I’ve done, it means the world.”
With just under 24 hours before ASU and GCU square off to conclude the regular season, a focus while their opponent has the puck will be key if the Sun Devils want to repeat their success.
“I think offensively, when we don’t have the puck, we’re trying to set up and get prepared for an opportunity,” Marino said. “We need to fight harder when we’re away from the puck. I feel like this game, we fought really hard when we had the puck but as soon as we lost it, we weren’t working as hard. Whenever we lose the puck, I’d like to see us work a lot harder to get it back.”
