The U12A Vernon Venom are the 31st annual Esso Golden Ring gold-medal champions.
The ringette team of 11 girls went 6-0 in the Calgary extravaganza and are believed to be the first Vernon team to strike gold in the Esso tournament in recent memory. Alberta teams normally dominate. There was a field of 12 in the U12A division.
Makenna Jackson pulled the hat trick as the Venom grounded the Calgary NW Impact 5-3 in the final.
Francks supplied the other two goals. Kennedy Jackson and sister Makenna combined efforts to register the go-ahead goal midway through the second half.
Jackson completed her hat-trick six minutes later off a breakaway feed from Johnson.
The Impact put on the pressure in the final four minutes, but could not beat netminder Jordan Tung, who was marvellous in goal all weekend.
Vernon brushed back the BowView Kiss 8-5 in the quarterfinal and then stuffed the Spruce Grove Kryptonite 6-2 in the semis.
Vernon opened the tournament with a 7-6 win over the BowView Madness. Makenna Jackson opened the scoring five minutes in off a feed from Kristen Francks and Sophia Bilodeau.
BowView took the lead until Hillary Quiring levelled the score less than a minute later. Sydney Lewis, taking a pass from Caryss Hill, put Vernon ahead in the first half.
BowView came on strong and took a 6-5 lead with only three minutes left. Jackson added a shorthanded tally to tie it with 2:22 to play, and only a minute later, Francks pocketed the winner.
The Venom took their next two round-robin games, 14-2 against South Calgary Choas and 10-5 over Calgary NW Noise.
Scoring in the preliminary games was shared amongst Makenna Jackson (7+4), Francks (5+2), Lewis (5+3), Quiring (2+4), Aimee Skinner (2+3), Kennedy Jackson (1+2) and Amelia Johnson, while Teagan Schober, Hill and Bilodeau combined for countless assists.
Head coach Darcy Quiring is assisted by Dean Francks, Coralee Hamilton and Kendra Ostafie.
Meanwhile, the Vernon Icebreakers tied the visiting Shuswap Cobras 9-9 in U10 play Sunday morning.
Lucia Manton and Theryn Petty each produced hat tricks for the Icebreakers, while Rory Lang counted 2+2 and Sabrina Kennedy scored the final Vernon goal.
Ginger Demetrick and Sienna Vanderlinde each supplied two assists with single helpers coming from Hailey Roberts and Kassidy Peterson.
