Daryl Watts scored 2:16 into overtime to lift the Toronto Sceptres to a 2-1 victory over the Vancouver Goldeneyes in the third annual Battle on Bay Street, presented by Scotiabank, Saturday afternoon at Scotiabank Arena in front of a crowd of 17,856.
Watts’ unassisted goal was her sixth of the season, coming on a solo effort as she worked into the high slot and snapped a shot top shelf over the shoulder of Vancouver goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer. The win snapped a four-game losing streak for Toronto and extended Vancouver’s skid to three games.
Toronto applied pressure early, firing 20 shots in the first period, but Maschmeyer kept the game scoreless heading into the second. Savannah Harmon opened the scoring with a power play goal at 12:43 of the middle frame to give Toronto a 1-0 lead.
Vancouver responded just 29 seconds later when former Sceptre Sarah Nurse, a native of nearby Hamilton, scored her second goal of the season in her first game since being activated from LTIR.
Said Nurse, "We didn’t have a great first period, Masch [Emerance Maschmeyer] bailed us out making [20] saves in that period, but as the game went on and we started figuring things out, how to combat what they were doing, I thought that we did a great job of doing that. Once we tighten our game up and really make those hard plays, the game becomes easier for us. We see glimpses of that, and so we have to do that all the time.”
After a scoreless third period, Watts ended the game on Toronto’s second shot of overtime. Maschmeyer finished with 42 saves, matching a career high, while Raygan Kirk stopped 23 shots for the Sceptres. The teams will meet again on Thursday at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum.
After the game, Sceptres' goaltender Raygan Kirk said, "“I think it’s always amazing playing in this rink, getting to do it last year and the energy here again — any large arena we’ve been in is so unreal, and I think we’ve just been really feeding off that energy. It’s so nice to get the W today. It’s been a tough few games for us and getting it in overtime too, where we haven’t maybe yet this year, it was electric. I have to give a shoutout to Sav [Harmon] for that first goal, that snipe!”