THUNDER BAY – Sports – BLAINE, Minn. – The Thunder Bay Queens have two teams returning home with gold medals from the All-American Girls tournament in Blaine, Minn.
Both the First Class Gas bantam AA and Triad Contracting peewee Queens came away victorious by identical 3-2 scores in their respective championship games played Sunday.
Meanwhile the Manshield bantam A side also finished their tourney on a positive note as they blanked North East Metro United 3-0 in their final contest.
FIRST GLASS GAS BANTAM AA QUEENS 3 CHASKA-CHANHASSEN STORM HAWKS 2 (OT) – It took extra time but Alyssa Cicigoi scored the deciding goal as Thunder Bay topped Chaska-Chanhassen 3-2 in bantam AA championship game.
Ciccigoi opened the scoring for the Queens with the lone tally of the opening period finishing off a feed from Jayda MacArthur five minutes into the contest.
Danielle Saunders then connected unassisted 3:11 into the middle session to make it a 2-0 game.
The Storm Hawks scored on the power play midway through the second to make it close.
Chaska-Chanhassen then forced OT as they added another man advantage marker with 8:41 to go in regulation.
However Thunder Bay would prevail to take the title thanks to another Cicigoi effort to win it.
Alyssa Aho was the winning goaltender for the Queens.
The victory marked the second straight solid tournament performance for the bantam AA Queens in tournament play as they earned a silver medal last month in Windsor, Ont.
TRIAD CONTRACTING PEEWEE QUEENS 3 ANOKA TORNADOES 2 – The peewee Queens finished up an unbeaten weekend as they used the solid goaltending of Josee Robinson to help lead them to the crown.
Outshot 27-16 in the finale Robinson made 25 saves to backstop Thunder Bay to the triumph.
Carly Hennessey got the Queens on the board early as she found the mark just over a minute into the game.
Anoka answered right back at 2:43 to level the proceedings after one period of play.
Neither side would score in the middle stanza, but in the third Lucy Newman and Brenna Nicol notched tallies 36 seconds apart to put Thunder Bay up a pair.
The Tornadoes added one late, but that’s as close as they would get as the Queens skated to the victory.
Jocelyn Wojciechowski chipped in with a pair of assists, including setting up the game-winner to aid the club’s offensive cause.
MANSHIELD CONSTRUCTION BANTAM A QUEENS 3 NORTH EAST METRO UNITED 0 – Samantha Stubbs posted her second consecutive shutout at the tourney helping her side wrap-up play with the victory over Metro United from Minneapolis.
Delaney McLeod picked up her second game-winning goal of the weekend notching the difference maker unassisted just 30 seconds after the opening face-off.
The Thunder Bay defence took over from there backed by Stubbs to stifle their opponents the rest of the way.
The Queens added some insurance in the final frame getting an early marker from Allyson Lesperance assisted by McLeod and Hanna Johnston.
They then sealed the win with an empty net effort from Victoria Zieroth with Jessie Page setting it up.
Shots on goal favoured the winners 22-10, who finished up competition with a respectable 2-2 record and a seventh place finish out of 12 team in the tournament where they played up a level going against bantam AA teams.
Overall the three Queens’ clubs that took part in the All-American tournament finished with a combined 9-2-1 overall record.
