Staff
The Pinewood Blades Bantam girls’ hockey team was pushed to their limits but still managed to emerge as champions at the Kathy Sanders Memorial tournament in Dryden last weekend with a 5-4 victory over the Kenora Avalanche in the final.
It was their second tournament victory in as many tries this season, having beaten Marathon in the final of the “November Chill” tournament in Thunder Bay.
Taylor Dixon led the way against Kenora with four goals while Shae-lynn Smith added a goal and three assists.
The Avalanche kept bouncing back every time Pinewood got some breathing room. But less than a minute after Kenora tied the game 4-4 in the third period, Dixon netted her fourth of the game to give the Blades the lead for good.
“It was back-and-forth. The kind of game you want to watch, and it kept the fans out of their seats and kept me on the edge of the boards,” coach Glenn Smith laughed.
“The girls never got flustered, and they just continued battling hard and stepped it up.”
The team had opened the tournament with a 3-2 loss to the Kenora White Attack. Joe-dy Morrisseau and Courtney Bethune (a replacement on the team for Amber Morrison on the weekend) scored for the Blades’ in that one.
“It was probably a good thing, I thought,” Smith said of the opening-game loss. “[To] wake them up and realize they are beatable, and they showed me that they can bounce back.”
The Blades rebounded nicely with a 4-2 win over the Thunder Bay Maroons in their next outing, getting goals from Morrisseau, Dixon, Smith, and Halle Shypit.
Smith also registered two assists.
The local squad then scorched the Dryden Hotshots 7-2, with Dixon exploding for four goals and two assists.
Smith added two goals and an assist while Morrisseau scored the other. Taylor Gouin assisted on the game’s first goal by Dixon.
Dixon continued her torrid pace in their next game—a 5-2 win over the Red Lake Rockets. She scored five times in that one, with Smith assisting on three of them.
“The girls are playing good together and we have a good team concept, and they are having fun,” Smith enthused.
