The Salmon Arm bantam A female Silverbacks travelled north to 100 Mile House Oct. 26-28 for their peewee-bantam girls’ tournament, going undefeated to claim the gold medal in a six-team field.
Salmon Arm opened the tournament on Friday with a game against Merritt, quickly overwhelming their southern counterparts by scoring early and often. Kaisy Huber led the way for the offence with a hat trick, and Chelsea West notched the first of three shut-out victories in goal over the tournament.
Saturday morning saw the Silverbacks face opponents from the Tri-Cities in the Lower Mainland. Again the ’Backs proved much stronger in this contest, blowing it open for an 8-0 victory, with Brooklyn Sewell getting three goals and earning the hat trick.
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Their afternoon game on Saturday saw Salmon Arm in their fiercest competition of the weekend, against the host team 100 Mile Wranglers. Up 2-0 at the half-way mark of the second period, the ’Backs surrendered their only point against them of the weekend, before scoring another pair to take the game 4-1 in the end.
Sunday morning saw them playing South Delta in the gold-medal final. The Silverbacks’ overpowering offence, stone-wall defence and concrete goaltending proved too much for the opposition, resulting in a 3-0 shutout victory.
Jada Brown, Hayden Mead, Reanne Muller and Brooklyn Sewell received MVP honours on the weekend.
When asked what the keys to success were, captain Natasha Kociuba said “we really started to gel as a team. It wasn’t about individuals. We passed the puck and tried to get everyone into the play.”
The Silverbacks hit the road again to travel to the Wickfest tournament in Calgary on Nov. 15.
Submitted by Peter Kociuba