Horns knock off defending champs

Special teams and rock-solid goaltending lifted the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns to a win over the defending U SPORTS champions.

The Horns scored twice in the second period to snap a scoreless tie and once more in the third period to down the Alberta Pandas 3-1 in Canada West women’s hockey play Friday night at Nicholas Sheran Arena.

The Pronghorns power play went 2-for-3, while goaltender Alicia Anderson faced 43 shots and Tricia Van Vaerenbergh scored once and added two assists for the win over the nationally second-ranked Pandas (5-2-0-2) that improves Lethbridge to 4-5 on the season.

“Our power play finally got rolling,” said Pronghorns head coach Michelle Janus.

“Right now this team has a high ceiling,” said Pronghorns head coach Dave Adams. “I don’t know how high that ceiling is yet, it’s a bit early to say. I think in many areas we’re still learning to play together because we have a lot of fresh, moving parts on the floor and everybody is playing every night.

“I think the major area we need to improve as we go

forward is we need to become better defensively in the half court. Our transition defence has been outstanding, but it’s one of the parts we’re proud of. But we haven’t done a great job in the half court. As we get better in the half court defensively, that will also help us understand what our ceiling looks like.”

The women’s game goes at 6 p.m. with the men to follow at 8 p.m.

The games will be streamed live on