After a double overtime loss in their first playoff game, the Bursey Buryn Cougars could have been emotionally crushed. Instead, they used the stinging setback as fuel and knocked the favoured Vancouver Fusion out of the post-season.
The Cougars and Fusion, who compete in the B.C. Hockey Female Midget AAA League, played a best-of-three quarterfinal series in the Lower Mainland on the weekend. Friday's extended opener ended 2-1 in favour of the Fusion. On Saturday, the Cats bounced back with their own 2-1 win. In Sunday's deciding game, the Cougars got a late third-period goal from Taya Garneau and shutout goaltending from Megan Spooner and won 1-0.
"It feels so good," said Garneau, who will turn 17 on Thursday. "It just feels like a big accomplishment for us."
Garneau was the offensive star for the Cougars. As well as firing the series winner, she scored both of her team's goals on Saturday, including the deciding marker with about five minutes left on the clock.
"I was just working hard," she said. "We all worked hard as a team and just wanted it. I wanted it enough that I put all my effort into it."
Toward the end of the regular season, Garneau missed about a month of action because of a lower back injury, the result of a hit from behind. For a while, even walking was difficult. She got back into the Cougars' lineup for season-ending games against the Thompson-Okanagan Rockets, Feb. 26-27 in Prince George, and used those contests to find her stride.
"It took me a bit to come back, but I'm good to go now," she said. "After the games it's still sore but I just ice it."
Bethany Roy pulled the trigger for the Cougars in Friday's double OT loss. The Fusion scored the winner on a goal-mouth scramble while on a power play.
The Cougars, with a record of 4-21-3, were the last-place team during the regular season but got a huge boost of confidence when they beat the first-place Rockets 4-0 in that Feb. 27 game. The Fusion, meanwhile, completed the regular schedule with a mark of 9-15-4 and finished one spot ahead of the Cougars in the five-team league.
During the season, the Cats went 2-4-1 against the Fusion. With the playoff win, they advanced to face the Rockets in a semifinal series this coming weekend in Rutland.
"I'm just really happy for the girls," said Cougars head coach Jason Garneau. "They've been working really hard -- dryland [training] two days a week, two or three days a week at practice, and I'm just happy that they bought in and did what they needed to do. We actually deserved a better fate in a lot of games this year. We played much better than what our record looks like on paper and this weekend we went out and proved it."
Coach Garneau praised the weekend play of Spooner, who was named the league's player of the month for February.
"She was very steady," he said. "She made some spectacular game-saving saves in the game [Sunday]. It was really good. I was really happy with her."
In the other semifinal, the second-place Fraser Valley Phantom will host the third-place Kootenay Wildcats.
