Nanaimo’s top two rep girls’ hockey teams both brought home Island championships last weekend. The Ramsay Lampman Rhodes North Island Extreme midget A girls and the Mid Island Extreme bantam A girls both swept their Island finals, two games to none.
The midget girls needed an exciting comeback win in Game 2 in Victoria to get past the South Island Breakers 2-1. Scotia Bellavance supplied the tying goal before Katrina Hawkins scored the championship-winning goal, converting a pass from Tamara Berger with six minutes left in the game. Paige Metzner was the winning goalie.
“There wasn’t a lot of room for error in the game,” said Tim Paugh, the team’s coach. “It was a pretty tight game – lots of emotion and lots of effort.”
For the bantam Extreme, the Island championship is extra satisfying, as fans will recall that the bantam rep program was cancelled in 2009 before it was reinstated for this season. It meant that this year’s players needed to get their skating legs back this fall.
“It was definitely a process and we knew that in September – they hadn’t seen this level of hockey,” said Bill Hardy, coach of the team. “Their attitudes were that they wanted to improve, and they worked hard and they did.”
In the decisive Game 2 on Saturday at Campbell River, the Extreme won 4-1. Dayna Briggs and Celine Tardiff scored the first two, then Danielle Hardy added two late goals. Mikayla Seltenrich was the winning goaltender and Robyn Olson and Cassidy Green played well defensively.
Provincials start March 20, with the midget girls going to Invermere and the bantams going to Kelowna.
Silvertips miss out on playoffs
The North Island Silvertips put forth an impressive late-season surge, but it wasn’t quite enough to get them into the playoffs. Nanaimo’s B.C. Major Midget League hockey team was eliminated from post-season contention when it lost 7-4 Sunday to the Fraser Valley Bruins at Parksville’s Oceanside Place. The ’Tips defeated the Bruins 5-3 the day before at Port Alberni to stay alive.
North Island (14-18-6) closes out the BCMML season this weekend with road games at Langley and Abbotsford.