The Owen Sound Pee Wee BB Ice Hawks went to Sarnia on the Jan 18th to 21st
weekend for the International Female Silver Stick Championships and had a very
successful weekend placing 3rd overall in the 12 team tournament.
Teams from Oshawa, Aurora, Kitchener, Lambton, Strathroy, Burlington, Stoney Creek, Huron Heat, Brantford. Windsor, & Sarnia were all there to stake their claim for the Major title and would offer some incredible competition to their rivals.
With only 4 returning players from last season, there were high expectations laid out for Team Captain Chesney Miller and Assistants Kenzie Falls, Tiegen Berne and Mary Green to be strong and lead the way over the weekend with their experience & leadership.
The four girls answered the bell really well and even though Owen Sound had little experience as a complete team as there were many players who had never seen any Silver Stick action before entering a tournament of this magnitude and finishing the way they did showed they belong in the conversation when Ontario's top teams are mentioned.
Really there wasn't any serious expectations from the coaching staff to where they might fit in over the weekend, except to work hard and keep focused on themselves, play their own kind of game so they can compete with the big city teams. They knew if the girls could meet this task, they could possibly fight there way into the top 6 teams of the tournament.
Well fight they did as they went 3 and 0 in their first 3 games and found themselves fighting for 1st place with Brantford in the undefeated game on Saturday night.
The first game of the tournament was against the home town Sarnia Ladies Sting in which OS won 2 to 1.
Goals were scored by Lara Dennis in the 2nd period with assists by Natalie Tolton & Chesney Miller and then the winner was scored with 8 minutes left by Tiegen Berne assisted by Marissa Rouse and Kenzie Falls.
Game #2 saw a game with the 12th seeded team in Ontario, the Huron Heat and OS won it 1 to 0 with a goal scored on a break away by Natalie Tolton in the 2nd period with a beautiful tape to tape pass from her own end to the red line by Mary Green after getting it from her D partner Maggie Harvey.
Game #3 saw a 2 to 1 win over the 18th Seed in the province, the Stoney Creek Sabres with both goals being scored by Chesney Miller with assists going to Natalie Tolton & Mary Green on one and Natalie Tolton again on the other.
So Heading into Game #4 with the 8th seed in the province, the Brantford Ice Cats, the game would send the winner to the 1st place Semi Final, and the other to the 2nd place Semi Final, both on Sunday morning.
With absolute sportsmanship and class in mind, both teams met in the hallway before the game at the request of the Brantford coaches as their players had pins to give to all our girls. It was a very nice gesture and a fantastic thing to witness! So once this was done, the game would begin.
Brantford took an early lead and had OS 2 to 0. The game stayed very close for quite a while before Owen Sound clawed back and got a goal in the first minute of the 3rd period which breathed new life into the girls.
The goal was scored by Natalie Tolton with assists to Chesney Miller and Charlotte Green.
The girls kept pressing and began to take the play to Brantford in the last frame.
Natalie Tolton scored again with 3 minutes left in the game on a play from Keirsten Henrich & Lexi McMullen, but a lack of total celebration by the players on the ice and a pair of referees caught out of position deemed costly for the girls and the game finished 2 to 1 instead.
Even if they had been able to secure the tie, Brantford had scored more goals overall in the tournament as the tie breaker, and so Sunday morning Semi Final had arrived, and the girls drew the 2nd place Semi Final against 10th seed in the province, the Windsor Wildcats.
Windsor and Owen Sound played a very tight checking first period and it closed with a 0 to 0 score.
But Windsor proved to much in the second period and broke out scoring 3 goals and then 3 more in the first 6 minutes of the 3rd.
Owen Sound showed no quite, still working hard as they had all weekend Marissa Rouse found the back of net with just 1:38 left on the clock to break the shutout bid. Assists went to Kenzie Falls and Maggie Harvey on the play.
It really was a complete team game the whole weekend that got them to Sunday with defence always on all their minds.
But they have got offensive boosts when needed from Natalie Tolton which have been evident all season, and she was stellar again along with outstanding saves and timely goal tending form Alyssa Barnard who has backstopped every game this season and has been the real back bone of this team.
All in all, a memorable tournament in which these young ladies shall never forget and use to get themselves through their next major challenges they face!
Playoffs are next, Congratulations & Good Luck Ladies!
