With a favourable schedule and a whole lot of good play, the Estevan Senchuk Bear Cats won the Atom C Division at the Female Hockey Challenge last weekend in Regina.
The Bear Cats defeated the Regina Tigers 8-0 in the final Sunday to claim the tournament victory. Brooke McKinnon, Kaylin Wilhelm and Emily Ridgway each scored a pair, with Presley Hollingshead and Julia Durr each scoring single goals.
The Bear Cats defeated the Regina Royals 6-1 in the semifinal. Wilhelm scored three, Brielle Farr scored a pair and Alexis Williamson scored one in that game.
“This was the first time in a long time we’ve been to a Regina tournament,” said co-coach Amanda Minchin. “We normally go to a Brandon tournament but we didn’t’ this year. It’s a great weekend and they have a huge tournament with different age groups.”
The team is young and a few players entered the year without a lot of experience but have been improving through the year, playing in the South Saskatchewan Female Hockey League with a 3-3-4 record. The team is in third place in their league.
“The girls are progressing well just as you’d expect them to in this age group,” Minchin said. “It’s good to see how far they’ve come since we started in Spetember and they’re starting to play well individually and as a team.”
Once they got to the tournament, the Bear Cats were able to walk through the C division with an 11-1 win over the Regina Royals, a 10-0 win over the Regina Tigers and an 8-0 win over the Regina Rebels.
“We were quite a bit stronger than the teams in that division, so hopefully next year if we get invited back they’ll bump us up to the B division,” said Minchin. “But the girls played really well as a team and we worked on some things we could do given the circumstances.”
The team got to meet former Estevan resident Mariah McKersie, who plays for the University of Regina Cougars and McKersie took the team through the Cougars’ dressing room.
“They were pretty excited about that. That was very nice of her to take some time,” Minchin said. “To see a young woman such as her where you can actually see a face attached to the success is pretty cool.”
McKersie is one of two Estevan hockey products currently on the Cougars, with rookie Jenna Grube being the other.
The Bear Cats’ next game is Monday against Weyburn but they were uncertain as to where it’ll be. The game was originally scheduled for the Civic Arena but will have to be moved to either Affinity Place or the Power Dodge Ice Centre.
