Three Lightning teams strike Gold in Whitby
Players from the Richmond Hill Lightning’s Open ‘A’, U19A, and U16AA teams that competed in the Whitby Ringette Tournament January 8 – 10 came away with gold medals draped around their necks.
In a battle of undefeated teams in the Open ‘A’ division (18+), the Lightning faced a strong Durham Flames team in the gold medal final. Although the Lightning never trailed in the affair, the Flames always seemed to be in a position to ignite at any time. After trading goals, the Lightning jumped into leads of 3-1, 4-3 and 5-4; only to see the Flames come back to tie the score each time. The Lightning took a 6-5 lead with less than 2 minutes to play and were able to fend off the Flames to secure gold.
In U19A action, the Lightning opened the tourney with an 8-3 loss to the Ayr Ice Cats before rallying with wins against Guelph 5-4, London 6-1, and Gloucester-Cumberland 5-3 to finish third after round robin play to earn a rematch with Ayr in a semi-final match-up. In the semi the Lightning jumped out to leads of 2-0, 3-2, and 4-3 but found themselves tied at 4 with 4 minutes to play. With 1:33 remaining the Lightning scored to advance to the gold medal final against an undefeated Forest team. The Lightning got off to a good start in the final when they jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. However, Forest battled back with four straight goals for a 4-2 lead at the half. The Lightning kept battling and scored three goals in less than a minute to take a 5-4 lead with just under 6:30 remaining which they held to the final buzzer in securing gold.
In U16AA play, the Lightning posted a 3 win, 1 loss record after round robin play where their sole loss came at the hands of Ottawa 5-3. The Lightning advanced to the final and a rematch with Ottawa, with a lopsided 14-7 semi-final win over West Ottawa. As with the other gold medal winners, the Lightning found themselves with a 2 goal lead in the final. However, similar to the other finals, their opponent battled back to tie the score at 2. With under 4 minutes to play, the Lightning took a 3-2 lead, however Ottawa tied the score a mere 10 seconds later. Undeterred, the Lightning again took the lead less than 30 seconds later which they held for a 4-3 win and the gold medal.
Also playing in the Whitby tournament were the Lightning U14AA, U12P, and U9 teams. To view scores and standings go to www.scores2stats.com
In a tournament in Burlington, the U16B-Thompson team was asked to compete in the U19 Regional division. Playing up a division, the Lightning found that the pace was quicker than they were accustomed to as they dropped their opening game 8-0 to St. Clements. The score in their second outing yielded a similar outcome, a 9-2 loss to Mississauga, however the team felt that their compete level had shown improvement. Their final round robin match up was against an undefeated Burlington team that had a win over St. Clements and had tied Mississauga. With lessons learned from their first two outings, the Lightning kept pace with Burlington trading goals twice and then took leads of 3-2 and 5-3 before the half. Burlington came out strong in the second half scoring 4 unanswered goals to take a 7-5 lead, however the Lightning continued to battle and eventually tied the score at 7. Unfortunately, Burlington scored a power play goal with 27 seconds remaining to win the game 8-7. The tournament proved to be a good experience and a good showing for the younger Lightning squad.
In other ringette action, The U10-Ianni/Weaver team lost a couple of close 1 goal games in dropping a 7-6 decision to Mississauga and a 9-8 decision to their sister Lightning team, U10-Applebaum. The U12-Harling team defeated Mississauga 8-1 while their sister team, U12-McKnight took out the Pickering Shooting Stars 10-3. The U14A-Chamandy team defeated Markham 8-2 while the U14B-Mews team dropped both their weekend games with a 6-5 loss to Newmarket and a 4-2 loss to Mississauga. The U16A-Roman team defeated Markham 1-0. The NRL Lightning took two out of three weekend games with wins over Bourassa Royal 7-1 and Gatineau Fusion 9-7 with an 8-5 loss to the Montreal Mission sandwiched in between. The Bolts currently sit in fourth place; seven points behind first place Cambridge, with only 2 points separating the second, third and fourth place teams.