U19A Gators bring hard effort to Horvath tourney

By JAMES TUBB on December 4, 2021.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The Medicine Hat U19 A Gators are a tough team to play against.

An Airdrie goal in the last 30 seconds of the Gators first game of the Ed Horvath Interprovincial Ringette Tournament Friday forced them to settle for a 4-4 tie.

While they were held out of the win column, the Gators put themselves ahead late when Airdrie called a timeout and Hat coach Marty Robinson drew up a shorthanded offensive zone play for Allison Mason to score. Seconds later, while a down a skater, she did just that.

“We’ve got a couple plays that we use,” Robinson said. “I thought Allison was about due and I’ve coached her for 10-12 years so sometimes the coaches can get a read on, ‘OK, this is the one we need to do right now.'”

Mason add it was awesome to have a play drawn up and work like that.

“The coach drew it up on the bench and we executed it perfectly, and when we do that and we put it in the net and score, feels great,” Mason said.

The Gators had a 3-1 lead after the first period before giving up three in the second, leading to the tie. Robinson said they let the foot off the pedal after getting ahead.

“That probably wasn’t our best game, I thought Airdrie brought huge effort and those girls didn’t quit,” Robinson said. “We kind of sat back a little bit there in the second period. We missed a couple easy breakaways there, wide open nets, that would have been a different story. Pretty proud of these girls, they work hard.”

Rheagyn Heinrichs, who had multiple big saves in the second period to keep the game tied for the Gators, echoed that they let off their effort.

“I feel like we let it get a little bad in the first couple minutes and then we took over and we started winning and we let it get to our head,” Heinrichs said. “Then it was a little too late before we realized it’s got to our head and we have to win and we let the tie get the best of us.”

Heinrichs says each big save gives her confidence throughout the game.

“It’s such a big confidence boost every time because you hear the fans cheering, your bench cheering and then the players on the ice right in front of you, they’re cheering,” Heinrichs said. “Even the refs, if the whistle blows they are saying, ‘Nice job.’ So, the saves are really big confidence boosters.”

Robinson said Heinrichs has come a long way in her first season at the A level and gives the team a lot of trust.

“As we go through the year, we are going to keep building that trust. She’s pretty new to the girls but we’ll keep working with her in practice and in games like this and we’ll be fine.”

He says the key for the rest of the tournament will be continuing that heavy effort and playing with it for the whole game.

“We talked to the girls pretty heavy about effort,” Robinson said. “We have the skill, we just have to play a full 46 minutes of effort, that’s the key.”

The Gators have had success in tournaments this year as they won gold in a Regina tournament and silver in an Airdrie one. He says the girls have high expectations this weekend.

“This group of girls, at least since I’ve been coaching, we’ve won the gold ever year in our home tournament and I don’t think they will be too happy if they don’t,” Robinson said.

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