Turning silver into gold is the Mission for St. Albert’s U14AA team at the Western Canadian Ringette Championships.
The silver medallists at consecutive Ringette Alberta championships were also cast in silver at last year’s westerns as the St. Albert Mission lost 5-2 to Team Alberta, which was Calgary White at the 10-team U14AA tournament in Saskatoon.
“It was a bit of the same thing as our provincial final this year. We had them. We were up and then we kind of took our foot off the pedal and let down a little bit and as soon as we let our guard down, Calgary was good at jumping on their chances,” said netminder Raegan Schulha, one of six returnees on this year’s Mission squad that suffered a 5-3 setback to Zone 2 Blaze in the March 17 gold-medal game at provincials in Sherwood Park.
“We had a good game as a team, we just have to be a little hungrier for them the next time,” Schulha said. “The whole weekend with the six games in three days is a lot and it caught up to us at the end of that game.”
The Mission will have to wait until today’s crossover playoffs for another shot at Zone 2. The only win against the provincial champions was 3-2 in the semifinal of the 33rd annual Esso Golden Ring as Jazzi Fevin, another returning player, sniped the overtime winner.
The Mission went on to beat Calgary White 5-4 to become the first AA team in the St. Albert Ringette Association to finish first at the Golden Ring.
As for the loss to Zone 2 in the provincial final, “The turning point was at the half because we were up by a couple of goals and then we started to get down, but I feel our effort was there, we never really let down, it was just that we got a couple of unlucky chances and it just went the wrong way,” said co-captain Megan Scott of the Mission leading 3-1 at the break but penalties and bad bounces proved to be the team’s demise.
The Mission also dropped a 7-2 decision to Zone 2 in pool play at provincials while going 4-2.
After day one of westerns in pool A, the Mission posted wins of 6-3 against Team British Columbia 2 at Kinex Arena and lost 6-5 to Spruce Grove (Alberta 4) at Go Auto Arena.
At provincials, the Mission battled back from an early 3-1 deficit to defeat Spruce Grove 4-3 in the semifinals.
Friday’s scores against Team Saskatchewan and Team Manitoba were unavailable at press time.
Today’s semifinals are 8 a.m. at Akinsdale Arena and 8:15 a.m. at Kinex and the medal finals are 12:45 p.m. for bronze at Akinsdale and 12:30 p.m. for gold at Go Auto.
Visit www.2019wcrc.com for the U14AA results, as well as scores and today’s playoff times for the St. Albert host teams at westerns: U16A Saints, U19A Select and 18-plus A Crew.
Westerns were worth the wait for the hometown Mission since the season started.
“It’s super exciting. We’ve been supporting each other as a team all year and now we’re really feeling the support from the community and all the fans in the stands. It’s energizing and a good experience for us,” Schulha said.
To play for a gold medal is the team’s objective since day one.
“We’ve been taking it one game at a time because if you’re focusing on the end goal and the end result and you’re just thinking about the final all weekend we’re not going to be playing good building up to that, so we’ve just been focusing on the start of every game and just winning that game and winning every shift and just everything that we can do to get to where we want to be,” said Schulha, 14.
The veterans are committed to leading the way for the newcomers on the Mission.
“It does help that we had that experience (at westerns in Saskatoon). We can share with our first-years our experiences so they kind of know what they’re getting into, but it's also fun to have different experiences from different westerns to see how this one is going to be like as well,” said Scott, a returning defenceman from the 41-9-4 Mission, five-time silver medallists in seven tournaments.
“We have a lot of the same skill that the girls had last year where we’re very fast and we communicate well so that’s a similarity. We also work well together and we do a lot of the same plays we did last year and they work the same way, too,” Scott said. “All of our girls have a great bond together, too, which helps our play and our success this season so it’s been really fun.”
The Mission marched into westerns with a 32-14-3 record that included the repeat performance as winners of the Bernadette Price Memorial Tournament in Saskatoon, as well as the breakthrough showing at the Golden Ring.
“There’s been a few bumps in the road especially with so many new girls. By the end of last year, we were all close but this year, we had to rebuild some of those bonds but it’s working really well. We just had to build our way up,” said Schulha, a Grade 8 Sir George Simpson student.
Scott, 13, described the U14AA brand of ringette as super strong.
“It’s very fast and you have to think in a split second because everyone has a chance at beating you. There are no bad teams at this level. Everyone can win,” said the Grade 8 student at École Secondaire Sainte Marguerite d’Youville.
