Senior A Lady Wolves net second tourney victory

Playing their best hockey of the season, the Sudbury Senior A Lady Wolves are hitting their stride while visions of Provincials dance in their heads.

The locals made it two straight tournament championships, looking impressive from start to finish in capturing the Peterborough Ice Katts tournament last weekend.

To do so, the Lady Wolves had to beat the defending Ontario champion Hamilton Hawks on two separate occasions, including the final. Sudbury broke the ice in Peterborough with a 3-1 win over the Oshawa Lady Generals as Jessica Schroeder drilled a hat-trick, capping it off with an empty-net goal.

The Lady Wolves' offence really started to roll in Game 2 as two-goal efforts from both Tanya Lamon and Jill Zinn powered coach Brian Band and company to a 6-2 victory over the Aurora Predators. Natalie Arbour and Jenna Lantaigne rounded out the scoring.

Playing their third game of the day, Sudbury looked anything but tired, blanking Hamilton 4-0 as Schroeder added another pair of tallies in support of the shutout netminding of Vanessa Jacques.

Zinn added her third marker of the day, with Chantal Archambault joining her on the scoresheet. The completion of round-robin play on Sunday morning featured a Sudbury crew that was raring to go.

The Lady Wolves scored five times in the opening six minutes, defeating the Carleton Place Cyclones 8-3. Arbour enjoyed a three-goal performance to lead the way, with Zinn, Lamon, Schroeder, Lantaigne and Valerie Valiquette finding the back of the net once each.

It was straight to the gold-medal game for the northern ladies, who proved that their initial win over Hamilton was no fluke, limiting the Hawks to just 16 shots in posting a second straight 4-0 whitewash over the defending provincial champions.

Ashley Gosselin connected for a pair of goals in showing the way for Sudbury, with Valiquette and Schroeder adding singles. Jacques made it back-to-back shutouts while Schroeder, a graduate of the Newmann College program outside of Philadelphia, led all scorers with a 12-point weekend.

The 2013-2014 edition of the Senior A Lady Wolves includes Alyssa Talevi, Vanessa Jacques, Jill Zinn, Janick Bazinet, Maxime Vaillant, Tanya Lamon, Jenna Lantaigne, Amber Debassige, Monique Marcotte, Chantal Archambault, Ashley Gosselin, Caroline Pollock, Lucia Mazza, Natalie Arbour, Jenna Schroeder, Valerie Valiquette and Lina Perrier.

Rob Marcotte returns, once again, to assist Brian Band with the coaching duties, while Rachelle Marcotte serves as team trainer. The Senior A ladies will enjoy a break from competition over the holidays, back in action in early January with a tournament appearance in Scarborough.