U15 B Girls place second at International SilverStick

The Sam’s Home Hardware U15 B Girls St. Marys Rock brought home the silver medal from the International SilverStick tournament Jan. 1-4 in Sarnia. Pictured in the front row, from left to right, are Hailey Pickel, Olivia Davis, Addison Jones, Teadora Walsh, Paige Johnson, Reese Crawford, Chloe Phillips, Madeleine Jeffreys, Tealya Thistle, Avery Fifield, Charlotte Matheson, Lucy McFarlane, Maeve Sheldon and Lexi Flax. In the back row, from left, are head coach Dave Bailey, assistant coach Sarah Bailey, assistant coach Megan Bailey, manager/trainer Kim Jones and coach Nick Sheldon. Not pictured was assistant trainer Scott Walsh.

By Spencer Seymour

The Sam’s Home Hardware U15 B Girls St. Marys Rock took the silver medal at the International SilverStick tournament in Sarnia Jan. 1-4.

Head coach Dave Bailey told the Independent the team’s play ramped up as they got into the most important games of the weekend.

“We talk about being a cohesive unit and putting the same effort into our defensive side of the game and our back-checking as we do on the offensive side of the game,” said Bailey. “That’s what I saw us do on the Sunday, and despite the fact we finished on the short side of the final, our effort was excellent and we were very good when we needed to be.

“These girls can absolutely rise to the occasion and compete with any team at this level in Ontario, and I love that they’re able to do that. They have that will and that strength about them, and they hate to lose. I think they hate to lose more than they love to win, and I’m fine with that.”

St. Marys finished second in their pool with two wins and two losses in the round-robin, setting up a clash against the other pool’s first-place St. Thomas Panthers. Bailey explained that St. Thomas has had the Rock’s number so far this season, but good team-wide defensive coverage and stellar play in between the pipes led to a win in the semi-final.

“St. Thomas had beaten us twice this year, and they handled us fairly strongly in the past, but we adjusted and we shut them down. Our forwards collapsed in the defensive zone and covered the high slot well, and even when they had their chances, our goaltending was great. Lexi (Flax), our goalie, was fantastic, especially on Sunday. I’ve told her that she’s got to be our best penalty killer. She’s got to be our rock, and she was. She made 52 saves out of 55 shots on the Sunday, so there’s nothing more she could have done.”

The white-knuckle semi-final stayed scoreless until well into the third period when, with just over five and a half minutes left on the clock, Charlotte Matheson put home the eventual game-winning goal, assisted by Tealya Thistle. Olivia Davis added an insurance marker in the final minute to secure a 2-0 win, with Lexi Flax earning the shutout in goal.

In the finals against the high-powered Kincardine Kinucks, the two teams traded goals in the second period before Kincardine found the game-winner in the third to earn a 3-2 win over St. Marys. Madeleine Jeffreys got the Rock’s first goal, assisted by Paige Johnson and Lucy McFarlane, with McFarlane later scoring a goal of her own, assisted by Chloe Phillips and Davis.

Throughout the tournament, Phillips, described by coach Bailey as a “warrior who always shows up,” led the offensive production with five goals and three assists. Jeffreys and Matheson ended the tournament with two goals and four points each with Bailey saying Jeffreys “plays with passion and grit every second she’s on the ice,” before calling Matheson “consistent, hard-working and dangerous in the offensive zone.”

Bailey also credited the team’s defence group of Thistle, Addison Jones, Maeve Sheldon and Teadora Walsh as “the most complete defence group I’ve seen this season at this level.” Bailey also mentioned forwards Reese Crawford, Avery Fifield and Hailey Pickel for their stellar efforts at both ends of the ice throughout the weekend.

“They really like each other,” Bailey said of the team’s cohesiveness. “We have a good team chemistry and balance in this group, and I think that matters. They’ll go to war for each other and that’s everything you can ask for as a coach because if you don’t have that cohesiveness, you get more individuality, and you can’t beat the best team as individuals. They understand what it takes and I think the next step for us is to do it more consistently because there is no question they have the ability.”

However, Johnson and McFarlane were arguably two of the biggest bright spots of the weekend. Johnson, who had struggled a bit to score as of late, delivered four goals and one assist in the tournament while McFarlane had four points in the tournament, including a goal in the gold-medal game. Bailey called the two the team’s most improved players.

“They’re both very hard workers,” Bailey said. “Paige (Johnson) is a great example of hard work paying dividends. She had lost some time with hockey due to an injury and she’s worked really hard to come back. Six weeks ago, she was so close to burying pucks but they just weren’t going in and I said, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing. Keep going to the net.’ And finally this weekend, they started going in.

“Lucy (McFarlane) is fairly small but there was only one game this year that I had to tell her to play bigger. She is blossoming into a real contributor. She actually landed on a plane from Cuba in Windsor on New Year’s Day and they drove right to Sarnia and got to the game 30 minutes before it started. I didn’t know what we were going to get out of her with her just coming off a holiday, but she was great and she didn’t take her foot off the gas the whole weekend. And Paige and Lucy are making their line with Madeleine (Jeffreys), who’s very offensively gifted herself, extremely dangerous.”

With the team’s regular season wrapping up last week, the Rock now turns to their post-season, with Bailey saying the intensity of their practices will be increasing.

“Practicing like it’s a Game 7 is where we need to be moving forward because in a week or so, every game we play is going to really matter. I told the girls on the weekend, ‘The goal is to be perfect. Perfect doesn’t always translate on the scoresheet or to wins, but how it translates is that each of you can walk back into this dressing room, look yourself in the mirror and your teammates in the eye, and know you couldn’t have done anything more than what you did.’ And I’d say, on Sunday, we were close to perfect.”