The Parkland Lions continued their dominance of the Â鶹´«Ã½AV Sask. Female Hockey League bantam division this past weekend, first defeating the Regina Tigers 7-2 before shutting out the second place Swift Current Colts 9-0 in Churchbridge.
The two wins improve the Lions' record to a perfect 11-0-0 in the eight-team SSFHL, good enough for first overall with 22 points.
Swift Current sits second with a 5-3-1 record and 11 points, while the Regina Blues (4-3-2) and Regina Tigers (3-3-0) sit third and fourth respectively with 10 and six points each.
Moose Jaw sits in fifth with a record of 3-4-0 and six points, while Weyburn (2-7-1) is sixth, Estevan (1-5-1) is seventh and Wood River (0-4-1) is eighth with five, three and one point each.
It didn't take the Parkland Lions long to find the scoreboard on Saturday. Lions captain Brooke Hausermann opened the scoring 5:42 into the game with her ninth goal of the season to make it 1-0 for Parkland.
The Lions made it 2-0 just over four minutes later when Heather Fiske buried her third goal of the season past Tiger netminder Claire Ledingham, however Regina cut the lead to just one before the end of the period when Emily Schwab managed to do what only three girls had done so far this season; put a puck past Taylor Nagy.
Janna Keisig regained the two goal cushion for the Lions less than two minutes into the second period before Hannah Pennell made it 4-1 Parkland via the powerplay midway through the frame.
Regina's McKenna Brewster got one goal back for the visiting team with 7:38 remaining in the period, however Keisig's second of the frame just one minute later made it 5-2 after 40 minutes.
Two more goals just over two minutes apart midway through the final period, one each by Keisig (hattrick) and Pennell, gave the Lions the catfight win, knocking off the Tigers 7-2.
The Parkland Lions then hosted the second place Swift Current Colts on Sunday, defeating the Colts 9-0. Taylor Nagy picked up her 11th win of the season to move the Lions' record to 11-0-0. Unfortunately stats from the game were not available.
Nagy's 11th win of the season also happened to be her eighth shutout of the year, most in the history of the league. "She's (Taylor Nagy) really strong," offered Parkland head coach Chad Holinaty. "There are gaps in games where she doesn't get very much action. I'm good with that but I know that she would probably like a bit more action. When we do have a breakdown because we are being aggressive, we know she's there to back us up. It's unbelievable but it's a testament to her skill and the team defence that she has eight shutouts already this year.
"It's been a strong, strong defensive effort all the way but when we do have a breakdown we know she's there for us."
However it hasn't just been the play of Nagy between the pipes and the defence that has led to the Parkland Lions' success so far this season. It's been the entire team's work ethic and conditioning; the latter being something that Holinaty says the girls wanted to make sure was strong right from the start of the season this year. "That's something that even last year when we had our exit slips, the girls talked about conditioning heading into the season," offered Holinaty, continuing, "Tricia Shyiak and our team has put a lot of work into the off-ice conditioning and it has paid off. Our girls are moving quicker, their conditioning is fairly good and that allows us to play at the tempo that we want to play at; there has definitely been a lot of work off the ice that has paid off.
"In addition, the girls are really buying into the team systems, they're competitive and when we do have some shifts that are off, they're really quick about getting back on track. We're pleased with where we are but we know we're not a finished product yet."
Next up
The next action for the Parkland Lions will be this weekend when they travel to Regina for a tournament. The next regular season action will be Tuesday, December 9 when the Regina Tigers once again make the trip to Churchbridge. Game time for that game will be 6:45p.m.
