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Thunderstruck make mark

A wonderful weekend ended with a silver medal for the hard working Shuswap Thunderstuck U14 ringette team

A wonderful weekend ended with a silver medal for the hard working Shuswap Thunderstuck U14 ringette team.

The team travelled to the Lower Mainland to compete in the IceBreaker Ringette Tournament, where they faced their toughest rivals, Kelowna in the final.

In a nail biting and closely fought contest, Kelowna would prevail with a 3-2 win despite the Shuswap girls thrilling parents and fans with scoring chances until the last second of the game.

Strong teamwork and effort was on display in the first game Friday morning with a convincing win over the host Burnaby-New Westminster team.

Ashley Bitz, Phoebe Barnes and Delany Perry scored twice each, while Bethany Riley had a goal and an assist from the blueline.

The second Friday game featured a match up with Fraser Valley, which the Thunderstruck won 2-0 in a tight, penalty-filled game.

Teagan Findlay and Chloe Latosky bolstered the team with strong defensive play.

Saturday started with an early morning game against Vancouver-Richmond, which the Thunderstruck won handily. The game featured strong performances by forwards Kylynn Rosenburg and Arleen Chhokar, as well as Hannah Patterson on defence.

In the second game on Saturday, the Thunderstruck met their greatest competition, the Kelowna Rockettes.

Shuswap came out flying and opened up a commanding 8-2 lead before Kelowna mounted a strong comeback. The game ended 8-6 with scoring by Mikaela Curdyk, who notched four goals, Sydney Decker and Taylor Cowen.

The Shuswap Thunderstruck completed the round robin as the only undefeated team, winning all four games and finishing first in their division.

Sunday morning began with a semi-final game against Port Coquitlam.

Curdyk scored a hat trick to lead Shuswap to a hard fought 4-2 victory to earn a place in the gold medal game.

Thunderstuck coach Tobiah Riley contributes much of the team’s success to the stallar play of goaltender Ryann Decker.