Cyclones win league title in overtime
The South West Cyclones won two straight South Sask Female Bantam A Hockey League playoff games in overtime to claim the league title after a grueling best-of-three championship series against the rival Estevan Chargers.
The Cyclones opened the championship series with a 4-3 triple overtime win over the host Chargers Wednesday.
Jenessa Fournier was the overtime hero when she scored an unassisted goal with 42 seconds remaining in the third overtime period.
The two teams had combined for five goals in the first period. Courtney Bredahl scored for the Cyclones in the second period to tie the game 3-3 before the two teams would play to a standstill for over 80 minutes before Fournier ended the marathon game.
Bredahl had opened the scoring only 1:33 into regulation.
Darby-Jayne
Fletcher
The Southwest Cyclones defeated the Estevan Bruins twice in overtime last week to win the South Sask Female Bantam A Hockey League championship. made it 2-0 only 1:55 later.
Estevan stormed back with a natural hat trick from Araya Wheeler over 4:05 to lead 3-2 after one period. League leading scorer Makenna Morrison was in on all three Estevan goals.
Laura Fiddler, Courtney Funk, Chelsea Wilson, Tenelle Lind, and Reece Girodat all picked up assists for the Cyclones. Keara Zoerb earned the win in goal over 109:18 of work.
“I think there was a lot of adversity,” said head coach Wayne Girodat. “Both games we actually outshot them probably three to one. They have a very good goaltender. The girls were just persistent and kept working hard and we were able to put some pucks in the net finally and pull off a win.”
Girodat said the marathon contest took a toll on his team during a busy week despite having a larger roster than Estevan.
“Yeah we do but we had to shorten our bench down to two lines probably near the end of the third period, so we were basically rolling two lines and throwing the odd girl in. It was very exhausting and the girls were definitely tired. It definitely ended up having an affect on our Friday night game in Provincials against Springside, the girls were definitely still tired from that.”
The Cyclones clinched the best-of-three championship series Saturday in Gull Lake when Reece Girodat scored with 7:43 left in the first overtime period for a 5-4 win.
Girodat finished with a goal and two assists and Fiddler scored twice. Darby-Jayne Fletcher and Fournier each had a goal and an assist. Taylor Kirwan picked up a pair of assists and Bredahl added a single helper as the Cyclones outshot the visitors 48-14.
“We are pretty excited about it,” said Wayne Girodat.
“We made that our goal at the start of the year to win the league. Last year they beat us in the league final and that was our goal. Through some hard work we finally were able to pull it off.”