The Canada West championship banner belongs to the University of Manitoba Bisons women’s hockey team.

Lauren Taraschuk made 18 saves as the Bisons defeated the University of Saskatchewan Huskies 5-2 Saturday night at Max Bell and swept the best-of-three final in two straight.

“I feel like I’m on top of the world,” said fourth year forward Lauryn Keen. “We worked so hard for this and being here twice before and not getting this feeling – it feels so good to finally have got it done.”

Charity Price, Alana Serhan and Natasha Kostenko scored second period goals for the Bisons who saw that 3-0 lead disappear when Huskies forward Kaitlin Willoughby beat Taraschuk with 4:45 left in the middle frame and again 78 seconds into the third period.

Jordyn Zacharias restored the Bisons two-goal lead when she scored with 4:56 remaining in regulation.

Courtlyn Oswald added an empty netter with 72 seconds left on the clock.

The Bisons won the series opener 1-0 in overtime on Friday night and Keen said they were ready to push back when Saskatchewan made it a 3-2 game early in the third period of game two.

“We worked so hard for this,” said the 22-year-old Manitou product. “This has been our goal all along. We weren’t taking no for an answer.”

The Bisons will play for the U Sports National Championship which will be held in London, Ontario from March 15-18.