Juniors finish season with silver at Regionals
GUELPH - St. Marys Juniors finished up their season in fine style here two weeks ago, by winning the silver medal in the year-end Regional ringette tournament.
All the games were hard-fought, with three of the four games Laurie Smith’s team were involved in being one-goal contests.
On the Friday, St. Marys opened the round-robin portion of the tourney with a convincing 8-4 win over Elora.
Leading the way on offence, with two goals apiece, were Julia Van De Walle and Bria Murray. Singles came off the sticks of Kelsey Schaefer, Dayna Cardiff, Laura Smith and Clarissa Hicks.
Kayla Simpson played a solid game, controlling the corners and notching a big assist on the go-ahead goal. Kasey Wheal also was outstanding with two assists, and played a strong game on defence.
Friday night brought the second round-robin game against the host Guelph squad, and in a back-and-forth contest, St. Marys came away with an exciting 4-3 victory.
This was Laura (Trixie) Smith’s best game of the year, as she fired a hat trick, including the winner, breaking a 3-3 tie with less than five minutes remaining.
Smooth-skating Dayna Cardiff added the other goal, and assists went to Caley Salari, Kayla Simpson, Clarissa Hicks, Laura Van De Walle and Julia Van De Walle.
The defence pair of Hailey Miller and Clarissa Hicks was dominant every time
they were on the ice, keeping the opposing forwards away from the net, and
setting up their own forwards with breakout passes.
Goalkeeper Dawn Smith was solid, holding her team in the game many times.
Intense affair
On Saturday, the local Juniors played their final round-robin game, and in a
very intense affair, found themselves on the winning end of a 3-2 count
against their league rivals from Seaforth.
St. Marys actually fell behind 2-0 very quickly in this one, but showed the
true heart and character of all Stonetown teams by fighting their way back
for the victory.
Dayna Cardiff got the comeback started with a quick shot into the corner of
the net and Kelsey Schaefer tied it 2-2 late in the first half on a nice
passing play with Kayla Simpson and Laura Smith.
The second half featured end-to-end action with goaltender Dawn Smith at her
acrobatic best—turning away the Seaforth shooters at every turn.
Finally, Laura Smith bulged the twine behind the Seaforth goalie late in the
game, and then St. Marys clamped down with stellar defence to bring home the
one-goal victory, finishing the round-robin with a perfect 3-0 record.
Defence pair Laura Van De Walle and Kasey Wheal was at their best in this
game, and forward Bria Murray was skating with wings on her feet.
Classic final
The Juniors would return to Guelph on Sunday for the gold-medal game, only
to find out they had to play Seaforth again. And it was a classic!
The locals got off to a slow start against the physical Seaforth team, and
found themselves trailing 3-0 at half-time. But once again, the collective
heart of these girls showed through in a tremendous second half of ringette.
Caley Salari, playing the best ringette of her career, got the comeback
started by tucking in her own rebound early in the half to make it 3-1. 
Seaforth got that goal back just seconds later to make it 4-1, but St. Marys
dominated the next 10 minutes.
Julia Van De Walle, with an assist to Hailey Miller, picked the top corner
to make it 4-2 with 11 minutes left, and then sister Laura Van De Walle went
hard to the net and was rewarded with a nice goal to make it 4-3 with six
minutes remaining. 
With the St. Marys parents now cheering wildly, Julia Van De Walle snapped
the ring into the net with five minutes left to tie this gold-medal final at
4-4.
The rugged Seaforth team ran into penalty trouble as the game wound down,
and the locals appeared to have things in hand as they had a powerplay in
the final minutes, and peppered the enemy net with shots. 
But it was not to be on this day, as Seaforth broke out of their zone and
scored a shorthanded goal with just 33 seconds left to take a very exciting
final, 5-4.
Congratulations to Laurie Smith and her assistant coaches Dan Miller, and
Paul Smith and all the Junior girls for another great year of ringette.