Atom Girls Show Big Improvements Playing Tougher Teams!
The Atoms girls faced two tough teams this weekend on Dec. 12 and Dec. 13. Although both games were a loss, it's the flip side of the story that we are crowing about.
Saturday's game against the visiting Mount Forest Rams was very exciting to watch. With Justice in net, our girls showed a very strong work ethic right away to prevent the strong skating Rams from doing early damage. Indeed, Justice had to make several jumping dives and even a pirouette to get the puck away from the attacking Rams sticks. Kudos to our defence, who were strong and raced back to defend the net against several rushes from the Rams. Congrats to Jet, who single-handedly corralled the puck from the blue line and shot it hard enough that it went under the goalie's pads. Although we lost, the flip side of this story is that our girls fared much better than last time we met them, which indeed shows that we've improved by quite a bit!
Sunday's game was also against a tough team. With Maddie away and Leah taking a turn in net, the girls were prepared to face the Blyth/Brussels Atom Girls who have some very skilled players. It took more than one of our girls to keep a lid on one very good player who could stick handle like wow. Our girls charged forward to get some action in the opposing zone, but the Blyth/Brussels Bull Dogs responded with a rush to our net and a flurry of stick slapping to get the first goal of the game. However, in the last 14 seconds of the first, Jet brought the puck in and caught her own rebound and lifted the puck up into the net for our first goal. Then, at the beginning of the second period, Jet got her second goal. We were winning the game at this point, but the Bull Dogs regrouped and got back three goals. Michelle, working with Taylor and Jet, scored our last goal of the game and bring our total to three. Leah worked very hard to stop several Bull Dog attempts. She dropped to her pads, she covered it up, and one time, she caught it like a baseball, but the Blyth/Brussels girls just seemed to get some good grabs and some great shots through her. Although another loss, the girls were praised by their coaches afterwards for showing enormous improvements over a strong team.
