Reivers win Hire Division championship

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This article was published 16/03/2018 (2853 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They started at the bottom, now they’re the champs.

On March 9, the Kildonan East Reivers defeated the Glenlawn Lions 5-4 in Game 2 of the final series to win the Winnipeg Women’s High School Hockey League Hire Marketing Division championship.

“It was nerve-wracking and exciting,” said assistant coach Taylor Wilgosh. “It means a lot, especially to the girls who are graduating.”

Julianna Baptiste posted a hat-trick in the series-clinching game, while veterans Kayleen Tetreault and Makenna Ducharme added goals of their own.

The Reivers had won Game 1 on March 7 by a score of 3-2. Baptiste and Brooke Goulet scored for the Reivers.

In both games, Reivers goaltender Samantha Robert, a Grade 10 student at Murdoch MacKay Collegiate, was named a game star.

“It was a lot of fun,” Robert said of the Reivers season. “It was a big experience for me. There were a lot of ups and downs. But I was pleasantly surprised how the girls did.”

Four years ago, six Grade 9 students — Meghan Young, Raisa Willis, Shaelynn Cooke, Tetreault, Ducharme, and Goulet, all of whom are now graduating this year — petitioned the school to start a women’s hockey program. The next year, an exhibition team took part in a few games and practices. In 2016-17, their inaugural season in the WWHSHL, the Reivers did not win a single game.

This season, their second in the league, the Reivers posted nine wins, 10 regulation losses, a tie and two overtime losses. In the playoffs, they won another six games, losing only once to Collège Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau in the semifinal.

“One of the biggest pieces was getting a diverse group of players to work together as a unit,” said assistant coach Jamie Giasson.

“Regardless of their backgrounds or lack thereof, they can work together. They developed a belief that they can make every shift count, whether it be shot son net, backchecking, watching your check. Every shift was purposeful.”

“A major thing we improved on was they got more connected on the ice,” Robert said.

“I see everything happening on the ice. They played their positions better because they trusted each other more. They grew together as a team.”

Robert’s own contribution to the team’s success shouldn’t be understated. In her 19 games between the pipes, the Grade 10 goalie had a 9-9-1 record with a 2.73 goals against average. She also notched one assist. For her efforts, she represented the Reivers in the league’s all-star day, playing for the Blue Jets team. She’s also been nominated for awards as the Hire Division’s top goaltender and MVP.

Not bad for a someone who only started playing goal four years ago.

“I just wanted to try it out,” said Robert, who wears a custom painted goalie mask featuring the likenesses of Montreal Canadiens goaltending greats Jacques Plante, Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy and Carey Price.

“Goalie has a lot to do. It’s interesting.”

Robert got involved with the Reivers through the league’s goalie pool during this year’s pre-season tournament.

“The girls didn’t have a goalie, their previous goalie graduated,” she explained. “I’d never played high school hockey, and really wanted to.”

Throughout the season, Robert also played AA hockey with the Saints. At press time, she’d played in 69 games this year. Sometimes she played in two games a day.

March 7 was one of those days. Immediately following the Reivers shootout win at Dakota Community Centre, in which Robert was named the game’s third star, she rushed off to nearby St. Vital Arena to play for the Saints.

“I had to put on my skate guards and rushed, in full equipment, and drive to other arena,” Robert recalled with a laugh. “I made it there with two minutes to spare. That was a lot of pressure. But I ended up playing and winning!”

With the original core group of Reivers graduating this year, Wilgosh said the team has a good group of Grade 9s — including Baptiste, Emily Fontaine,  and Boppy Kavanagh, who all made solid contributions throughout the year and during the playoffs — that they hope to retain.

“We’re hoping for a good crop next year,” she said.

Whether Robert will be reunited with her Reivers teammates to defend the Hire Marketing Division banner next season, though, remains to be seen. Following the success of KEC and CPET’s new women’s hockey programs, Robert said there is talk of Murdoch starting its own women’s hockey program.

“We just need more girls,” Robert said.