McKINNEY, Texas -- The 12-and-Under Glenview Stars finished off a dominant showing at the USA Hockey Girls’ Tier II National Championships with a 3-0 victory over the West Seneca Wings in the final Sunday.
Glenview’s championship game capped off a 6-0-0 run in which they outscored the opposition by a combined margin of 24-4 and never trailed any game at any time.
Forward Valerie Caldwell led the tournament with nine goals and 16 points in the six games, while teammate Delaney Weiss finished second with 11 points on six goals and five assists.
At the other end of the ice, goaltender Tianna LaValle, who played all but 21 minutes of the tournament, allowed just three goals and posted a stunning 0.67 goals-against average and a .952 save percentage, along with two shutouts.
“I didn’t have too many shots, but I just wish I could have helped my team score more,” said LaValle. “It feels really great. I dreamed to win nationals and it just feels really great to win.”
“They’re a good team, Glenville,” said West Seneca coach Rocco DellaNeve, whose club was out-shot 29-11. “They’re big, strong, physical, they were a lot bigger. Our goaltender stood on her head. I told her, ‘You can’t score goals for us, we got to find a way to do that.’”
San Jose folks admire the way Alliance ran tournament
With the San Jose Jr. Sharks hosting next year’s Tier II National Championships, the contingent of Jr. Sharks coaches and parents at the 2012 event in the Dallas suburbs paid particular attention to how the host Alliance Bulldogs organization handled things.
With 12U and 16U squads participating this year, the Jr. Sharks had plenty of observers in the Dallas suburbs and they were pretty impressed with how things were handled. The Alliance folks were also happy with how things turned out.
“Everything’s gone great,” said Sandy Fielder, tournament chairman for the Alliance. “I’ve talked to coaches, I’ve talked to parents, players, everyone seems happy with the location, with the facilities. No complaints at this point. Anything that we did have a problem with was small and was able to be solved quickly.”
“We had a representative from the Sharks here to be at all the facilities and stuff like that,” noted Jr. Sharks 16U coach Karl Schoech. “Plus, we had two teams here as well, we had the U-12 and U-16, so we had a lot of parents and a lot of support. It’s difficult to run a tournament in three different facilities; that is very difficult. Everything went very smoothly. The officiating is as good as officiating can be and I respect that, they did a good job. It’s a well-run program.”
The 12U Jr. Sharks fared quite well on the ice as well, advancing to the semifinals before finally falling to the West Seneca Wings 7-2, while the host Alliance 12U squad lost all three of its games, one in overtime, and did not qualify for the quarterfinals.
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.