The Parkland Lions Bantam girls' hockey team improved their record to a perfect 9 -0-0 and remain infirst place in Â鶹´«Ã½AV Sask Female Hockey League (SSFHL) after sweeping a weekend series in Weyburn November 21st and 22nd.
With wins of 6-0 and 8-0 the Lions continued to combine a powerful offence (41 goals in nine games) with a suffocating defence (three goals against).
Goalie Taylor Nagy leads the league with nine wins, seven by shutout and a paltry 0.33 Goals Against Average. "We really stress being sound defensively and that we want to be aggressive on the puck. We want to be a hard team to play against and force teams into making mistakes," said Lion head coach Chad Holinaty. "I like our mix of players in that we skate well and we can play skill game or a physical game.
When we do have breakdowns, we are also very confident in Taylor. There are gaps in games where she doesn't get much action, but when we need her, she's very sharp."
Friday's game was the first time the Lions have had their entire lineup dressed, but that changed quickly with injuries to centre Heather Fiske and winger Janna Kesig. "Heather went into the boards pretty hard in the second period and Janna re-aggravated an ankle injury, so we ended up juggling some lines," shared Coach Dean Shyiak, continuing. "We were controlling the puck well, but not really creating many quality scoring chances until late in the first period with a goal by Jordan Holinaty. That goal seemed to wake us up, and our offense started to click."
Second period goals by Brooke Hausermann, Tannis Lubiniecki and Hannah Pennell pushed the Lions lead to 4-0 going into the third period before a pair of third period markers, one each by Holinaty and Lubinieki, made it a 6-0 final. "Between periods, we talked about winning the battles in the offensive zone," offered assistant coach Jason Gordon. "Their wingers were staying tight on our defencemen, so we talked about running some low plays - give and go, drive the seam - and we had some success with that."
Saturday's game started out in a similar way with Holinaty again scoring late in the first period.
The Lions added two more goals in the second period from Holinaty and McKenna Davis, before erupting for five goals in the third period. Two more goals each by Davis and Holinaty as well as a single by Sidney Shyiak gave Parkland their second consecutive convincing shutout victory, this time by an 8-0 score. "Like Friday, it was a game where we got better each period," said Coach Kim Pennell. "We took a while to get settled down, but when we got our feet moving we were able to again create a lot of our offence by controlling the low zone.
"We told the girls to be patient and keep puck possession, and when they started to do that, we were able to attack some of the low seams against Weyburn."
The next action for the Lions will be a three-game home set beginning Friday, November 28 when the Lions host the Regina Tigers for a 6:15p.m. start.
Saturday, November 29 the Lions will once again welcome the Tigers, this time at 4:00p.m., before wrapping up the weekend Sunday, November 30 against the Swift Current Colts at 1:00 pm. All games will be in Churchbridge.
