Lucas Punkari
The local Lakewood Tire Eagles PeeWee girls’ hockey team went undefeated over the weekend to capture their annual home tournament, downing the International Falls 12U’s 3-1 in the final Sunday afternoon.
“The girls are really excited right now,” Eagles’ head coach Pete LeDrew said after the game.
“That Falls team is a really good team, and right now my assistant coach [Pat Langtry] and I are just speechless,” he added.
“The girls were so good in every role and with their team effort all weekend, and they really dug down deep in the final today.”
Another reason why the Eagles played so well may have been the fresh new uniforms they wore for the first time in their home tourney.
“I think that gave them some extra motivation,” LeDrew remarked.
“Our sponsor, Lakewood Tire, got the girls these new jerseys, and I picked them up on Thursday afternoon,” he noted.
“So just before our first game, I snuck them into the arena and gave them to the girls just before we started.”
After finishing Pool ‘B’ play with a perfect 4-0 record, the Eagles earned a berth straight into the final, where they were matched up against the also unbeaten 12U’s from the Falls.
Following two scoreless periods, the Eagles broke the game open with goals from Maighyn DeGagne and Hannah LeDrew.
Annalise Hayes added an empty-netter in the final seconds to put game out of reach.
“I think it was teamwork that was the difference for us today,” Pete LeDrew said. “We play together as a team and the girls have a positive attitude every time that they play.
“That makes this team a very easy one to coach,” he added.
One of the top performers in the final was Eagles’ goalie Marissa Loveday, who made a number of big stops to keep the game tied early on, including a huge glove save on Alexis Erickson late in the second period.
“On her own, Marissa has won a lot of games for us this year,” LeDrew noted.
“If we are having a weak game, we can depend on her to pull out a win for us, and today she played so good in net,” he lauded.
“She’s the type of kid that doesn’t show any nerves and she is always steady.”
Erickson tallied for the 12U’s in the third period, but her team was unable to net that elusive game-tying goal and ended up dropping their first game of the weekend.
“The girls played hard all tournament long, and they did great, but we just ran into a good goalie in the final game,” Falls’ coach Kevin Erickson reasoned.
“The girls moved the puck around very well all weekend long, and we made some changes to our lineup which put some girls in different roles, and they did well with that,” he noted.
The Dryden Herricanes captured the ‘B’ title with a 4-1 win over the OPG Tigers (Thunder Bay) thanks to a hat trick by Jessica Carter.
Avery Skead netted a pair of goals for the Lake of the Woods Dyn-O-Mite in the ‘C’ final as they dominated the Thunder Bay Hurricanes 8-0 while in the ‘D’ final saw Dryden Petro Canada edge the Emo Bolts 3-2.
Rounding out the local contingent at the tournament were Kaemingh Esso and the Super 8’s, but both teams just missed out on making the playoffs.
