FALL RIVER: Lucy Phillips and her Metro West Force Bantam Blue AA girls hockey team are Atlantic champions.
The Fall River product backstopped her Halifax-area squad to the Bantam AAA title in the final at the tournament, held in Charlottetown. They defeated PEI Wildcats 4-1 in the final, avenging a 3-1 loss in both teams final round-robin game the night before.
”I never would have thought that I would ever be able to say that we won Atlantics, it’s just shocking,” said Phillips. “If you were to walk into our room after the game you would never have thought that we had won because everyone was in tears, tears for happiness and tears that the season was over.”
She said the team knew they had to change up their game plan after the loss in round-robin.
“We knew that we had to change some things in order to come out hungrier,” she said. “The game we lost was nothing to us as we had already got through to the final so we weren’t hungry for it. The final was for gold.
“We knew that we had beaten them before (SEDMHA Finals) so we reminded ourselves that we could do it again.”
Phillips credited her team for having good luck in between the pipes. She had a sparkling .67 Goals Against Average in four games played.
“They helped me a lot by shutting down the attackers and getting goals on the board,” she said. “When I had shots I just did my normal and challenged the puck, made myself big and intimidating.”
Taylor Jeffrey with a hat trick and Rachael Cormier with a tally scored for Metro.
The performance she had helped Phillips be selected as the top goalie for the Bantam AAA Atlantics.
“It was the best feeling when they called out my name, the room filled with noise as I walked up to the front to collect my award,” said Phillips.
While her minor hockey season is done, Phillips still has some on-ice stuff to take care off. She has the Hockey N.S. U16 high performance tryouts and the Spring ID camp tryout for the Pro Cresting Midget AAA Lady Penguins, where she will attempt to make the team as an underage player.
“If nothing comes from that, then it would be nice to go for a four-time provincial title and second Atlantic title,” she said with a smile.
