Jan 11, 2010 | mmcqueen | 1035 views
Tournament Champs at Girls Classic Hockey Tourny
Mount Forest HL Girls played their first game of the home town tournament on Thursday Jan. 7th against neighbour rivals Normanby HL. The game was very even with great plays and no finishes for either team until one minute into the third period. Danielle Grotenhuis picked up a Jenna Yake rebound to put the locals on the board. 5 minutes later Courtney Hawksworth and Heather Gilley combined to slide one into the MoFo net. The locals weren't going to let the tie stand so Grotenhuis netted another with assists going to Amber Duncan and Lauren Oakes with 3 minutes left. The team held on for the win and tallied 4 1/2 pts toward their round robin total.
Bright and early Saturday morning the Girls had to face their familier rival Upper Maitland. The last 3 games between these teams have ended in a 1-1 tie; so it was sure to be a close one. 8 a.m. is not usually the brightest hour for teenage girls but this group was dressed and ready to skate. Amber Duncan started the scoring with 1.36 remaining in the first, Grotenhuis and Yake assisted on the play. Grotenhuis added an insurance goal at 2.12 of the second assisted by linemates Yake and Duncan. Tatiana Felsbourg put the icing on the cake with 1.50 remaining assisted by Bobbie Jo Patterson and Lizzie Gerrie for a 3-0 final and 5 1/4 pts toward the tournament total.
Sunday morning was an opportunity to play the Clearview Icecats; their Mt Forest tournament record was a win and a tie. The first period remained scoreless with great action on both ends and Mt Forest very thankful for Laura Rumph's strong play in net. The second period saw Clearview strike first and Mt Forest tied it up a few minutes later on a goal by Carly McQueen with help from Tatiana Felsborg. Clearview took the lead with a shorthanded unassisted goal by Ashley Chipchase. Mt Forest had no choice but to pull the goalie with 1.01 on the clock, they gave it their all but an ugly rebound allowed Clearview to get out of their own end and Chipchase just picked off the corner of the empty net to make it 3-1 for Clearview.
This game left Mt. Forest with a total of 11 points and Clearview with 13 and would mean they had to play each other in the final game at 4.15.
The tournament was running well ahead of schedule and the girls were keen to get things going too. Neither team was able to beat the solid goaltending at either end; there were lots of goal mouth scrambles but nothing went over the goal line; not until 11.18 of the third period. Clearview's Shanna Fitzpatrick finished off some hard work by Breanne Mattice to give them the edge in the game. The locals were tired they only had 10 skaters to Clearviews 17, and then Duncan got caught up in a scramble and hurt her ankle so the locals were down to 9. It took almost 10 minutes but then defense woman Oakes decided it was time for an end to end rush only to get stoned by the Ice Cats goalie but Patterson was with Oakes and picked up the rebound and stuff it past the tender to tie it up with 1.39 left in regulation. The game ended in a tie and then the 5 minute sudden victory did not produce a winner either.
Now it was shootout time.
3 shooters per team - most goals win.
Chipchase scored for the Icecats and Lauren Oakes netted one for the locals.
Now it was sudden victory shoot out time. Mt Forest was feeling pretty good, after all we had Laura Rumph in net and she's the toughest to beat. The Icecats goalie proved pretty tough too.
It took 6 more shooters but finally first year player Lizzie Gerrie rifled one through the five hole to give Mt. Forest the edge, now all we needed was Laura to continue her solid shot blocking. Rumph did what she so often does; she gave the Ice Cats shooter nothing but Ram Logo to shoot at and Mt Forest won the tournament!
Although not on the game sheets other team members are Mikayla Watson, ever solid on defense and an offensive threat in every game. Stephanie Penney who moves from wing to defense and back again plays strong regardless of where the team needs her.
The bench staff is very proud of this group of girls, they played hard and good clean hockey all weekend and represented the Mt Forest association very well. They also managed to put the tournament back on schedule by providing the overtime and shootout entertainment in the big win.
WAY TO GO MOFO !!