This weekend was another solid effort by the Armstrong Co-op Salmon Arm Female Midget Tier 1 hockey team.
On Saturday, Nov. 30 in Sicamous, the female midgets defeated Kelowna by a score of 4-1 with top-notch goal tending by Jaime Sedore (Salmon Arm). Goals were scored by Cailee Bauml (Vernon), Cassidy Marshall (Armstrong), Jenna Lazar (Vernon) and Maddison Turner (Salmon Arm) with the help of a strong defensive effort by Catlyn Marshall (Armstrong), Cloey Martin (Sicamous) and Hailey Haskell (Salmon Arm).
The Salmon Arm Female Midgets are in first place in the Okanagan division.
Exciting gold medal finish
What an exciting, nail biting, edge-of-your-seat, action-packed weekend for the Salmon Arm Atom B Abundant Specialty Advertising Silverbacks and their fans.
The Atom B team hosted its home tournament Nov. 22 to 24 with teams from Abbotsford, Mission, Penticton, Vernon and Kamloops.
The local boys kicked off the tournament Friday afternoon with a hard fought 3-0 victory over Kamloops with Carson Irmen getting the shutout.
Saturday morning the boys came out strong and defeated Penticton 5-1 with Joey Cornforth putting forth a stellar effort in goal for the local squad.
Saturday afternoon, the boys gave it their all and battled their way back and forth with the team from Mission but came up short in the end with a 4-1 loss.
Finishing first in the round robin, fate played its part in shuffling up the teams enough for Salmon Arm to meet Mission again in the semi finals.
The boys came out to prove their team was worthy of the gold and their persistence and hard work would pay off as they maintained a 1-0 lead until late in the third period when Mission would tie the game. With four minutes left, Dayton Lewis would score the winner in leading the local squad to the gold medal game against a powerful Abbotsford team that had excelled throughout the tournament.
With a quick goal at the start of the game by Abbotsford, the two teams settled down to a hard-fought battle.
Salmon Arm scored late in the first to tie the game going into the second period. The battle continued with Abbotsford scoring again and then Salmon Arm coming back to tie it up before Abbotsford went up 3-2 with a last-minute goal in the period.
The third period proved to be the most dramatic of the tournament and, with time winding down, Salmon Arm’s Aidan Hougen was able to put away a rebound to tie up the game.
Parents, family and friends were unable to stay seated as the third period came to an end. With the score tied 3-3, the teams headed to overtime and, although there were plenty of chances, neither team scored leading to a dramatic shoot-out. Dayton Lewis scored the winner while Carson Irmen shut out all three of the Abbotsford shooters, leading the boys to gold.
The tournament weekend was a huge success with parity amongst the teams, outstanding sportsmanship and many great volunteers.
