The Lakeland College Rustlers women’s hockey team hopes to win the program’s first ACAC championship in Red Deer this weekend.
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The Rustlers lead the best-of-five series with the Red Deer Polytechnic Queens 2-1. The first three games were played at the Russ Robertson Arena over the weekend.
Game 1, played on Friday, March 7, saw the Queens best the Rustlers 1-0. The rests of the weekend, however, went in favour of the Rustlers.
The green and gold beat the Queens 5-1 on March 8 and 4-1 on March 9 for the 2-1 series lead.
Game 4 is scheduled for Friday, March 14 at 7 p.m. in Red Deer. If necessary, Game 5 will be played on March 15 at 7 p.m.
For head coach, Morgan Mann, a gold medal is the ultimate prize.
“It would be pretty cool to win a gold medal, but a lot of things have to go right,” said Mann.
“We’ve had another great year. We broke the ACAC record for wins and most goals in a season. We’re really proud of those accomplishments, but to win the title would be a nice achievement for this group.”
What’s also astonishing about the group’s success is the fact they’ve only been playing together for four seasons.
“Year one, we won the title playing in the Alberta Female Junior Hockey League,” said Mann, explaining they were members of the ACAC the next season.
“After that junior league gold, we won bronze and silver in the ACAC.”
Despite the big weekend, Mann is already thinking about how to replace graduating forwards Mackenzie Stafford and Hailey Carothers next season.
“Mackenzie just graduated and will be a nurse in the community, which is amazing. Hailey is our leading scorer three years straight and has been the top scorer in the league since she’s been in it,” said Mann.
As the league’s top scorer, Carothers has doubled the second-place scorer three years in a row. She has scored 26 goals this season, 14 ahead of teammate Addison Eurich.
As for this weekend, Mann explained he’s well aware the Queens have “lots of jam,” but he’s also confident in his team.
“We have to come out and match their physicality and fight.”
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