Lucas Punkari
Having already won tournaments in Emo and Dryden earlier this season, the local Lakewood Tire Eagles PeeWee girls’ hockey team was looking to complete a trifecta of first-place finishes this past weekend on home ice.
But after a quick start, the Eagles ran into a brick wall in their final couple of games.
They lost 4-1 to the Howey Bay Hawks (Red Lake) in the semi-final before falling 4-1 to International Falls in the third-place game.
Emma Noga scored both goals for the Eagles.
“We started running into a lot of tougher teams as the weekend wore on, and the girls were starting to get a little bit tired out there,” noted Eagles’ assistant coach Gary Noga.
“As the quality of the teams got better, we started to fall behind a little bit and we just weren’t able to get the pucks into the net,” he added.
The Eagles had gone unbeaten until their final round-robin game Saturday afternoon, when they lost to the Thunder Bay Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes ended up making it to the championship game Sunday afternoon, which they lost 2-0 to the Hawks.
The Fort Frances Super 8 squad also competed in the local PeeWee tournament, finishing the round-robin with a 1-3 record before falling 5-1 to Dryden PetroCan in the seventh-place game.
Rylee Redford had the lone goal for Super 8 in that game.
