The Bantam Girls House League took to the ice this weekend at the classic Orangeville Sweetheart Tournament where Mt Forest always gives the yellow and green a dominating sheen.
This year was no exception as the girls won four out of five games to bring home the gold and another OWHA banner for Mount Forest.
Short forward, Chloe Roth and defenceman, Alexis Mills for the weekend the remaining team had to tighten their skates and put their elbows out a little wider than usual for the contest
Game one against Orangeville red was won 2-0 with two unanswered goals by Emily Allaire and Sage Cook in the first. Riding high off that win, the girls next routed the Orangeville silver girls in the second game of the evening 7-0 with a hat trick to Taryn North and a 3 point game to Abaigeal Durward.
Game three Saturday morn against the Caledon Coyotes proved a tough battle with both goalies showing off some impressive skill against a barrage of end to end counter offensives.
opened the scoring early in the first with a top corner snipe from the hash marks. Caledon tied up shortly after and after a pitched two period battle went ahead late in the third.
With goalie Sandra Nanninga pulled in the last minute, the coyotes cemented their win with the empty netter handing Mount Forest their only loss of the tourney.
Game four was against the tourney undefeated Grand River Mustangs who proved to be some tough customers.
Emily, Sage and Rachel Tisdale snuck in a quick goal just 24 seconds into the first against a shocked Mustangs defence. With their defence tightened up their counter offensive quickly put enough shots on goalie Sandra to tie the game til the second. But defence pairings MacKenna Gorman and Brianna Armstrong, Holly Crawford and Eaden Durward were tough customers too, allowing not one more goal for the tournament. Net crashing (literally) Brooke Armstrong with Abaigeal and Taryn with Chelsea Grisdale scored twice more to win the match 3-1, and put the Rams into the gold Medal game Sunday morning against the undefeated tournament leaders, the Orillia Hawks.
The Gold medal game was preceded by a thorough fast paced warmup and some tension relieving team routines to let the girls energy turn to focus on the team mantra- pressure, possession, protection, position and passing. And that's just what they did Rachel was in the Orillia crease at 9:20 in the first to get credit for the go ahead goal followed by Emily from Lainey Williams at 3:43. Orillia's star playmaker and top scorer was succinctly stymied by the relentless forechecking and back checking of the forward bench and the defensive team made no mistakes. Two more Rams goals, a third tourney shutout
for Sandra and a final score for the gold game of 4-0 for the ebullient
Mount forest girls.