Vernon ringette entries pocketed gold and silver medals in the 10-team Spring Ring Fling Tournament at Civic Arena.
The Vernon Venom went 4-0 in preliminary play and stopped the Bow View Madness of Calgary 5-2 in Sunday’s final.
Sidney Lewis opened the scoring at three minutes, stealing the ring and going in solo on the goalie. Makenna Jackson followed by burying a sweet backhander off a fabulous feed from little sister Kennedy Jackson.
Bow View answered but Makenna Jackson responded for the Venom and Hillary Quiring finished the first-period offence by sneaking one up high.
The first nine minutes of the second period was a fierce battle with Venom goalie Jordan Tung shutting down multiple shots before the Madness converted at 9:55. Just 39 seconds later, defencemen Amiee Skinner clicked with a deke off a textbook play involving Quiring and Lewis.
The Venom capped a superb season which saw them crowned the No. 1 U12 A team in both B.C. and Alberta.
In earlier round-robin action, the Venom doubled the Madness 12-6 with Kristen Francks, Makenna Jackson and Lewis each pulling hat tricks. Skinner (2) and Teagan Schober, with a beauty top-shelfer from a back-door feed, handled the attack.
The Venom finished play Saturday with a 10-4 win over the West Kelowna Devils behind hat tricks from Makenna Jackson and Francks.
Lewis, Sophia Bilodeau, Skinner and Kennedy Jackson added singles.
The Vernon Thunderwolves lost a 4-3 overtime thriller to the Shuswap Storm in the B side final.
Sierra Fernley skated her way through the defence and supplied the T-Wolves’ opening snipe. With 1.3 seconds left in the first period, Gracie Balcaen made it 2-1 Vernon.
Alecia Hughes stopped numerous Storm attacks in the middle stanza before the Storm equalized. Fernley pushed the T-Wolves Vernon ahead 3-2 before the Storm levelled the score with 92 seconds to play. Both teams fought hard in the overtime but a breakaway goal with 29 seconds remaining gave the Storm gold.
The Thunderwolves beat Prince George Inferno in the semifinals and posted a a sweet 3-2 redemption victory over the Storm in the round-robin, one week after losing the final league game.
Supported by strong defence and powerful forechecking, Emily Gilman buried one followed by back-to-back goals by Fernley.
In Game 2, the Thunderwolves brushed back Kelowna XLR8 3-2 win with Balcaen (2+1) and Gilman providing the offence.
“The Vernon Ringette Association would like to thank all of the volunteers that helped to run and organize this tournament, as well as all the local sponsors for donations for raffles, player bags, and prize baskets,” said tourney director Coralee Hamilton.
Meanwhile, the Vernon U10 Ice Breakers ended their season with a comeback 5-5 tie versus Kelowna U10 #2 Sunday.
Rory Lang (3) and Kiera Horton (2) handled the Breaker offence with clutch assists coming from Maryssa Wilson, Emily Loose and Sabrina Kennedy. Lucia Manton took a turn in net and made several key saves in the last minute.