Friday’s tilt in Guelph was a humbling experience for the women’s hockey team.

The Gaels were blown out on the road by the Gryphons (18-3-2), falling by a score of 7-2. Head coach Matt Holmberg felt that the team lacked both focus and execution during the game.

“We’re not making any excuses,” Holmberg said. “That was not our best showing.”

The team struggled in their own zone against Guelph, contributing to a rare seven-goal rout.

“We were taking too long to make passes,” Holmberg said. “We weren’t supporting each other all that well [and] we weren’t moving our feet and all those things add up to D-zone problems.”

Holmberg said these defensive struggles happened from players in each position.

Goaltender Karissa Savage allowed four goals on 12 shots before being pulled in favour of Mel Dodd-Moher midway through the second period.

The Gaels fell behind 5-0 before Morgan McHaffie and Shawna Griffin scored late in the second period.

Holmberg said the game wasn’t an indicator of anything going wrong for the Gaels in the season as a whole.

“We’re certainly going to treat [the Guelph game] like a blip on the radar,” he said. “We’re hoping that one game is not indicative of where we’re going.”

Sunday’s 6-1 victory against the Brock Badgers (3-18-1) was a complete reversal of fate, against a weaker opponent.

“Arguably it was one of our strongest team games since Christmas,” Holmberg said.

The Gaels had five different goal scorers and eight players contributed points. Forwards Chelsey Verbeek and Taryn Pilon both had three points in the game.

“To get production from a variety of people was great and that’s a positive sign going forward,” Holmberg said.