EAST CENTRAL — Through hard work and resiliency, the East Central Fillies won the female U18 A provincial hockey championship.
The regional squad playing out of LeRoy beat Milestone, 2-1, in the best-of-three finals. The Fillies claimed game one, 3-2, but Milestone evened the series with a 5-1 victory in the second contest. East Central rallied in game three – and overcame an equipment failure – to earn the provincial championship.
“I think we able to win the series by having total dedication to winning all year not just a ramp up at playoff time, that includes well attended practices and effort by everyone,” Fillies coach Murray Ehlert said. “Of course, our goalie [Allie Edwards] came up strong when asked as we were outshot both games we won against Milestone. And we made it a team identity to never quit regardless of score.”
That attitude certainly showed in the finals. The Fillies trailed early in both of their victories.
“As far as the comeback wins, I just feel we were a deeper team. We could get scoring from anywhere on our roster,” said Ehlert, who noted the squad’s practices featured lots of skating, including using parachutes for resistance.
It was not just the opposition’s strong starts that East Central overcame en route to a provincial title. Marissa Holcomb played much of playoffs with a fractured arm. McKenna Britz returned much sooner than expected form a dislocated shoulder.
In the third period of the final game with the score knotted at 2-2, captain Meikka Ehlert was on the penalty kill when something did not feel right.
“My ankle could essentially touch the ground, which obviously isn’t normal to be able to do in skates,” she said. “I told my dad [Murray] that I thought my skate was broken (it was missing some crucial rivets) so I immediately started kinda freaking out because there was still like 10 minutes left of the provincial final.”
Meikka Ehlert started thinking immediately of which teammate had extra skates. She remembered that Paige Haskey did. However, they were Bauers and Meikka Ehlert is a CCM devotee. As well, Haskey wears a size 7 while her teammate dons a 4.5. Meikka Ehlert put the large skates on and had her father tie them as tight as he could.
“[Assistant coach] Murray Braun had immediately put me out and I could tell immediately that my feet were going to be sore tomorrow,” she said. “They were completely different from what I’m used too, but I didn’t have any other options. Then everything I usually do just happened. I got to my position and shot and it happened to go in. I think that if any of the other girls on my team would’ve been in my position then they would’ve done the same thing.”
Her goal propelled the Fillies to the provincial title. That championship capped a successful season. East Central finished on top of the Saskatchewan Female Hockey League U18 A North Division regular season standings with a 14-4-2 record. In the playoffs, they won the North. Coach Ehlert said “from the superstition side, we never took a picture with the northern champion banner until both banners were side by side.” After beating Milestone in the hard-fought series to claim the provincial title, the team posed with both.
“Milestone deserves credit,” Murray Ehlert said. “Each game won could have gone either way. They battled hard.”
In September, just having enough players to ice a team this season was a hurdle the Fillies had to overcome. Some potential recruits opted not to join. Coach Ehlert expressed appreciation for the U15 coaches allowing Kaistyn Ehlert and Hadley Braun – the younger sisters of the Fillies’ Meikka Ehlert and Jayda Braun – compete as well as Maya Mortensen and Bryer Renwick when they could. The coach said it was great “Being able to rely on the U15 ‘little sisters’ as well as Maya and Bryer to play in any situation and give us the energy we needed.”
As well, once the U15 squad’s playoff run was over, goalie Kaycee Davies joined the U18 A team. She did not play in the older team’s postseason, but Coach Ehlert said Davies really helped the Fillies.
“She came to every practice and, when running different on-ice drills, the value of having a goaltender in each net cannot be understated,” he said.
In the playoffs, McKenna Britz paced the team with eight points in seven games. She also had a team-best seven goals. Meikka Ehlert recorded seven points. Jayda Braun and Ava Politeski had six points each. Allie Edwards posted a 1.71 goals against average with three shutouts in seven games. The Fillies roster this season included: Jayda Braun, Abigail Martin, Ava Politeski, Meikka Ehlert,
Marissa Holcomb, McKenna Britz, Quinn Olson, Ashley Baker, Kaistyn Ehlert, Nicole Hackl, Paige Haskey, Hadley Braun, Maya Mortensen, Kylan Hamel, Bryer Renwick, Allie Edwards, and Kaycee Davies.
The staff featured coach Murray Ehlert, assistant coach Murray Braun, assistant coach Bryan Politeski, assistant coach Danielle Miller, and manager Rhoda Ehlert.
