There's cutting it close, and then there's cutting it close, as the Stettler Midget girls found out in the finals of their hockey tournament this weekend, where they beat out Calgary 2-1 with just half-a-second left on the clock.
The Sunday, December 13 game came as the culmination of a three-day winning streak as the OK Tire Stettler Midget female hockey team played for the champion touque in front of an enthralled crowd of friends and family.
Halley Adams put Stettler on the board with the first goal, but once Calgary tied it up, it was a battle for the tie-breaking goal that lasted right until the last minute of the game. Then, with the clock running down, at a time when many players give up the game as finished, Kierra Scollo zipped in and got the puck past the Calgary netminder, breaking the score and ending the possibility of overtime.
To get to the A Finals against Calgary, the girls beat Calgary on Friday 8-0, then on Saturday beat High Prairie 8-0 and Edmonton 6-1.
"We were pretty played out by Sunday," Midgets manager Loreena MacGillivray said. "But we still came out with a win."
The Bantam girls weren't as lucky, missing the A finals completely, though they came out on top in the B finals with a 3-2 shoot-out win over Okotoks.
On Friday, the girls got off to a good start, beating Airdrie 7-1. Saturday was a stinker for the United Tank Stettler Bantam female hockey team though as they dropped an 8-1 loss against Wainwright, and then a 4-0 loss to Irma. The Saturday losses knocked the girls out of contention for the Bantam Champions toque, but they recouped over Saturday night to face Okotoks the next morning.
Goals by Hayden Friesen and Keely Adams kept the girls tied up with Okotoks, but despite desperate play, neither team could get the tie-breaking score, so the game went into overtime — which also went score-less. After the overtime period completed, it went to a shoot-out.
"They went through seven or eight shooters before they scored," MacGillivray said.
That shoot-out goal, by Willow Sorenson, earned the Bantam team the B finals win.
As part of the annual tournament this year the girls' teams hosted a food drive challenge, with the team bringing in the most food winning a pizza party sponsored by Stettler GM. A truck was front and centre in the lobby, its back full to the brim with donated food.
The Airdrie team ended up beating out the hosts, though only by a smidge.