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canadian interuniversity sport

Team captain Kim Deschenes scored two goals to lead the Montreal Carabins over the defending champion Calgary Dinos 3-2 in the CIS women's hockey championship on Sunday night.

It's Montreal's first CIS women's hockey title, and also the first-ever CIS championship banner since the resurgence of the Montreal Carabins athletics program in 1995.

Calgary played the final without Canada West MVP Hayley Wickenheiser, who left in the semifinal against Queen's with a lower body injury.

"I'm so proud of my team," said Calgary head coach Danielle Goyette. "We played without Hayley before this year, and we knew we could be successful. Tonight, we played with character and we came up one goal short. It's not the way you want to finish the season, but the way we played for each other tonight showed the character in our dressing room. We put everything on the ice, and we can leave with our heads up.

The Dinos opened the scoring just 5:14 into the contest as forward Sinead Tracey jumped on a rebound and deked around Carabins goalie Elodie Rousseau Sirois to score.

Deschenes tied it for Montreal while on 4-on-3 advantage, burying a rebound with 23 seconds remaining in the first period.

The Dinos dominated the first half of the second frame and finally scored when second-year forward Stephanie Zvonkovic banged in a rebound off the back post.

The Carabins tied it back up three minutes later when forward Marion Allemoz ripped a shot through the legs of Dinos goalie Amanda Tapp.

Tapp kept the game equal with a sprawling pad save on a Deschenes breakaway, but the captain scored the go-ahead goal one minute later when she picked up a rebound and fired it into the top corner.

Deschenes earned finals MVP honours for her efforts.

Sirois was honoured as a tournament all-star after making 23 saves, including eight in the third period, to secure the win, despite some solid Dinos pressure in the late stages of the contest.

"You have to believe that you can come back, and we were unlucky," said Goyette of her team's third-period effort. "Two or three times we could have put the puck in the net. Sometimes the bounces just don't go your way, and tonight it felt like the puck was square."

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