Jan 23, 2012 | lzabel | 809 views
Lightning Champions at Winterlude Classic
The Saugeen Maitland Bantam AA Lightning travelled to Ottawa to compete in the Winterlude Classic tournament and came home with the championship banner
After arriving Thursday evening, the coaches ran some skating drills on the Rideau Canal to get rid of the bus legs. The fresh air and extra skate must have done the trick, as the girls reeled off 6 straight wins while only allowing 1 goal all weekend en route to the championship. The Bolts knocked off the Scarborough Sharks, Kingston Ice Wolves and the Kanata Rangers in the preliminary round robin by scores of 5-0, 3-0 and 4-0 respectively. Another 5-0 quarter-final win over the Quebec Citadelles paved the way to a semi-final berth against the Ottawa Senators, a team ranked 5th overall in Canada for Bantam girls. In perhaps their best game of the tournament, the Lightning blanked the Senators 3-0 in their home arena. In the finals against the Barrie Sharks, it seemed as if the injury and flu bugs that had been plaguing the Bolts all weekend would finally catch up to them. However, down to a bench of 9 or 10 skaters, the Lightning defeated the Sharks 3-1. Rebecca Ropp and Morgan Baker shared the goaltending duties for the weekend, stopping all but one shot and adding another 5 shutouts to the team total. Scoring on the weekend were Miranda Lantz (6), Jessica Dales (3), Lexi Smith (3), Tori Terpstra (2), Neve VanPelt (2), Jamie Simpson (2), Cassidy Mason (2), Maddie Duncan (2), Avery Reeves and Hannah Herman. Contributing in the assists column were Ashley Lawrence, Ciara Lark and Nikki Zabel.
This weekend the girls play in their final game of the regular season, a Saturday afternoon match against the Lady Rangers in Kitchener. Follow the Lightning results at www.saugeenmaitlandlightning.com