Mar 06, 2011 | Howie Pruden | 967 views
Devilettes Forked by Lightning
In the biggest game of the year to date Saugeen came up huge and put away London with a 2-1 score. For the third straight game Saugeen outplayed and out shot the Devilettes but this time out scored them to win the series 4-2. The Lightning now travel to Chatham for the Division Finals.
Saugeen opened the scoring with a goal from Tori Harshman who fired from in front of the net on a feed from Tori Terpstra from behind the goal. Less than 4 minutes later Tori Harshman struck again as she broke down the wing, deked past the defense and went top shelf on the London goalie. Ally Spielmacher picked up the assist on a long pass to Tori. Cassidy Mason continued her strong play centering the 2 Tori's and had a couple of penalty kills that perserved the win.
Saugeen almost made it 3-0 on a goal mouth scramble where the line of Janine Vanderschot, Rebecca Rier and Emma MacMillan had a couple of excellent chances but could not bury it. This line played excellent and had many good scoring chances during the game. London scored on a power play in the second with 5 minutes to play and put a lot of pressure on the Saugeen team and clearly had the momentum going in their favor. Saugeen barely held the lead for the last few minutes but the 2nd period ended 2-1 Lightning.
After an inspiring pep talk the Lightning came out hard and turned the momentum back in their direction and had a couple of great penalty kills to keep the lead. The line of Reagan Kaufman, Ally Spielmacher and Sam Pruden had some great shifts during the game forcing turnovers in the offensive end and numerous scoring chances along with their penalty killing.
London got possession in the Saugeen end with 40 seconds to go , called time out and with the goal tender out had all kinds of pressure on the girls. Rebecca Ropp made the save of the season when a London player was left in front of the net alone and went high with the shot but Becca robbed her. Saugeen took a penalty with 16.5 seconds but a win on the face off allowed Cassidy to ice the puck and the game.
Rebecca Ropp had a great game and gave the team the confidence that she would keep them in the game. The defense limited the shots on net and kept the London players to the outside.
The London series was a great series with evenly matched teams playing clean games with few penalties. A great win for Saugeen and the girls are looking forward to Chatham with a chance to win the division and go to League Championship weekend.