By Christine Rivet
NORTH YORK – The Mount Forest bantam C Rams played their finest
defensive team effort of the season but fell just short in a 1-0 loss to
the Temiskaming Shores Puckhounds in the gold-medal final at the Toronto Leaside
tournament on Sunday.
The back-and-forth match was decided with 1:37 left when Temiskaming Shores Shannon O’Reilly scored on a perfect screen shot.
“Nothing less than a perfect, seeing-eye goal was going to win this game,” said Rams coach Bill W.
“Our girls played fantastic. Everyone understood their defensive assignments and executed them. We gave Temiskaming everything they could handle,” he said.
Sunday’s nail-biter featured plenty of end-to-end action with both teams’ defences pushed to their limits.
“The coaching staff is so proud of our girls who absolutely played their hearts out Sunday. As a coach, that is all you can ask of your team. Sometimes you need a bounce here or there and on this day, we just didn’t get one.”
In earlier action at the three-day event, the Rams defeated Peterborough 6-0 and then went on to a 4-0 decision over Ilderton.
In the Peterborough game, Haven L. and Carley C. hit the scoresheet twice apiece. Morgan F. and Jayde M. added one goal each.
Hailey H. and Carley scored twice each against Ilderton.
Haven scored for the Rams in their opener at the tourney, a 2-1 loss to Temiskaming. Alyssa V. had both shutouts.
The bantam C Rams girls have now advanced to the tournament final in every event they’ve entered this season – five in all – and have proven to be a formidable opponent in each tournament’s title game.
“We’ve got a fine assortment of medals this season,” said the Mount Forest coach.
“And that has only whetted our appetite for more. We’ve got a few items to work on to help us generate more offence in our remaining two tournaments so it’s important we get EVERYONE out to our remaining practices.”
Next practice for the Rams is Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Mount Forest.
And the Rams next game is on Sunday March 19 when they face the Kitchener Lady Rangers B's in an exhibition game at 4 p.m. at Grand River Arena.