Joey Payeur
The Muskie girls’ hockey team figured its 10th-annual home tournament started so well, it as well end the exact same way.
Amber Jourdain and Kaily Greengrass each had a goal and an assist, while Kate Parsons earned the shutout, as Fort High defended its title with a 4-0 whitewash of the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora) in yesterday’s final.
The Muskies beat the Saints by that same score to open the tournament, which saw them go 6-0 and outscore their opponents by a whopping 38-1 margin.
Throw in the previous weekend’s gold-medal effort at the Sturgeon Heights tourney in Winnipeg and the defending NorWOSSA champs are a perfect 10-0 so far while outgunning their foes 68-1.
“The team’s coming together,” said Greengrass, who stuffed home a rebound of Jourdain’s original shot 1:43 into the third to make it 3-0.
“We’re figuring out each of our positions and working better as a team,” she added.
Muskie assistant coach Todd Hamilton, whose team ruled the shot clock 55-4 in the final, said the difference was in the details.
“We had a couple of high-tempo practices during the week and the girls were well-prepared,” he noted.
“They did all the hard work and they were rewarded for it.”
Jourdain epitomized that work ethic on the opening goal of the final, which turned out to be the game-winner.
Setting up shop in the slot, the veteran forward kept after the puck and got two shots off, with the second one grazing Saints’ goalie Gilly Derouard and going in during a power play at 11:51 of the first period.
Amy Penner had the lone goal of the second, making a divine move to step around a St. Thomas Aquinas’ defender after a Muskie face-off win and zipped the puck past Derouard stick-side at 11:55.
Greengrass and Annalise Hayes, whose long floater fooled Derouard at 9:24 of the third, rounded out the scoring.
Derouard kept the score respectable with a fantastic 51-save performance while Parsons was barely tested at all—stopping the only four shots she faced to get the shutout.
Claire Sandelovich, who had two assists in yesterday’s final, led the tournament in scoring with 13 points.
Fort High followed up its opening win over the Saints on Friday with back-to-back 9-0 routs of the Portage Collegiate Institute Saints (Portage la Prairie) and the Miles Macdonell Buckeyes (Winnipeg).
The Muskies then finished the preliminary round with a 7-0 shutout over the Kenora Broncos.
Fort High took care of the Buckeyes with a 5-0 triumph in the semi-finals earlier yesterday.
The Muskies will get a much stiffer challenge in their next outing, when they head to Warroad on Nov. 14 to face the Warriors in an exhibition game.
The squad then opens NorWOSSA regular-season play Nov. 20 in Kenora against the Broncos.
Its next home game is an exhibition match-up Dec. 1 versus the Lake of the Woods Bears (Baudette).
