Busy weekend on the ice
The team was kept busy with 4 games in 3 days over the weekend
The girls were participating in the pink on the rink tournament over the weekend. There first competition was Friday morning against their rivals from Zurich. The thunder and the ice stars are two evenly matched teams, however the thunder has found a way to edge out the ice stars in regular season play. So an early meeting in the tournament would prove to be a great contest. Zurich opened the scoring early in the first and held on until early in the third when leah tied the game with some good old fashioned hard work. The game went back and forth with great chances at both ends but when the final buzzer sounded the game remained tied. A fitting end to a hard fought game between two rivals.
Game two saw the girls take on Stoney Creek. The ice stars were a little hesitant at the start of the game, having never played the sabres before. The first tally went to stoney creek early in the second and then less than a minute later they scored again to take a 2-0 lead. Victoria scored late in the second frame assisted by Hannah and Andrea but Stoney Creek answered right back to finish the period 3-1. The Sabres scored early in the third to round out the scoring and take the win, 4-1. Our girls didn't have their usual jump, having played such an intense hard fought game only a couple hours earlier. They put up a good fight, but it just wasn't enough to best the girls from Stoney Creek.
Game 3 had the ice stars taking on the host south huron sabres. This was a must win for the team if they had any chance of moving on to the finals. Alexis opened the scoring early in the first when she jumped on a rebound off a shot by Jillian. Alexis kept her hot hand going in the second when she buried a wrist shot over the shoulder of the south huron goalie to complete a great passing play by Hannah and Blayne. Late in the third, off of another great passing play by Dakota and Blayne, Alexis stepped in over the blue line and buried a low hard wrist shot through the five hole to complete the natural hat trick. With the South Huron net empty, Dakota took a pass from Tayler and completed the scoring with a final of 4-0. This was one of the teams best games of the year, everyone was on their game. Crisp passes, heads up play and a will to win all contributed to a complete team effort and great win.
Congratulations to Alexis on her first hat trick and congratulations to Victoria on the shut out. Despite the ice stars great performance over the three games, they did not move on to the finals.
Sunday night saw the girls hosting Zorra in a make up game. Leah sent a pass back to Andrea at the point who riffled a slap shot past the goalie to take the lead 1-0 late in the second period. Zorra tied the game at the 7:05 mark of the third and then took the lead with 2:44 left in the game. Despite pulling their goalie and giving zorra everything they had, the ice stars came up just short and lost the game 2-1. The team played another outstanding game with great passing and skating but just could find their offensive punch that they found in the tournament.
Continue the hard work girls, the results are starting to show and pay off!