The Portage Collegiate Institute (PCI) Saints are down 1-0 to Garden City in the Winnipeg Women's High School Hockey League semifinal. They lost game one of the best-of-three series 4-3 at Stride Place in Portage la Prairie.

The Saints may have gone into the match a little too overconfident and it showed from the first drop of the puck.

"Our heads weren't in it and we weren't ready to play," says head coach Jo-Anne Clark-Gillespie. "We won the opening faceoff and threw it up right into their defence and gave it up. The first goal we scored was because of puck possession and playing with the puck, but after that our puck control was gone. It was just too scrambly of a game."

The Saints scored to tie the game at one late in the first period. Kami Miller was the goal scorer, Bailey Grantham and Haley Morisseau picked up assists.

A lacklustre second period dug the Saints into a hole they couldn't make up. They allowed two goals to go down 3-1 heading into the third.

"We just quit skating in the second period," admits Clark-Gillespie. "We weren't pressuring them, and we gave them all the time in the world to get out of their zone. Everything just seemed to be in slow motion."

PCI finally found their form late in the final period. Garden City added a fourth goal with eight minutes to play, and that seemed to fire up the Saints. Grantham scored with four minutes left to get PCI within one. Rhiannon Ice and Paige Shwaluk each notched assists. Shwaluk would find the back of the net to cut the lead to one, but time expired, ending any chance of Saints comeback. Grantham and Kiera Shwaluk drew assists on the final Saints goal.

"It's unexplainable. I don't know if they came in with a little too much confidence because they thought because we've beaten them twice before and they could cruise to victory. You can't expect to win that way and it's disappointing. We've left it up to the girls to figure out what's wrong and hopefully, they can bounce back on Wednesday."

Garden City leads the best-of-three series 1-0. Game two is Wednesday in Winnipeg.