Blades girls cruise through two wins during weekend tourney

“We still haven’t peaked out to our potential”

The West Elk Blades U-19 girls hockey team made easy work of the Cheyenne Mountain Tigers on Saturday, January 24, outscoring the Tigers 10-2 to notch two more league wins, improving their record to 8-1-3.
The team knew the matchups would be relatively smooth sailing with Cheyenne sitting in the middle of the league standings. Nevertheless, coach Tony Lambert continues to push his team to outpace their opponent, no matter what.
“They dominated but when we play a team of lesser ability, we tend to slow down and pick up bad habits,” says Lambert.
The Blades started off in a hole in the first minute of the first game as a penalty left them in an early penalty kill situation. As it played out, the penalty kill forced the Blades to pick up their tempo as they pressured Cheyenne in neutral ice to stymie their powerplay. The work effort paid off almost immediately as a tipped Cheyenne pass deflected to Hailey Pike and Pike skated straight to net to score a shorthanded goal.
Penalties continued to plague the Blades throughout the first period, including playing a minute two players down but with the Blades’ penalty kill intact, Cheyenne Mountain was held scoreless.
The Blades got a break from playing a player down and switched roles with a powerplay midway through the first period and seized the opportunity as Pike found Kendl Santelli open in the slot and Santelli slipped the puck five hole for a 2-0 Blades lead.
Twenty seconds later the Blades struck again when Ashley Crittendon scored from behind the net off the back of the goalie’s skate and Pike tacked on her second goal of the game to close the period building a 4-0 Blades’ advantage.
The two teams skated through a quiet second period and Cheyenne Mountain opened the third period with a goal but Izzie Dethloff and Crittendon each netted a goal in the third to finish Cheyenne off 6-1.
“We spent a lot of time in the penalty box but we got to work on some powerplays and penalty kills,” says Lambert.
The Blades returned to the ice later that day to face Cheyenne Mountain again and skated to a 4-1 win paced by a hat trick by Pike and a solo strike from Bradley Santelli.
“Overall, the girls played great,” says Lambert, “definitely still building and still trying to find that killer instinct.”
The Blades remain at home this weekend as they host the Junior Eagles on Saturday, January 31 at 5 p.m. and then again on Sunday, February 1 at 11 a.m. The Junior Eagles are sitting at the bottom of the league standings so Lambert will continue to try to keep his team focused to prevent them from playing down to their opponent.
“I pretty much gotta make them all mad at me to keep them going,” says Lambert. “These two weekends should be tune-ups before we head to New Mexico, Santa Fe is definitely a good team. Hopefully we’ll go into there with some momentum and then carry that into states. We still haven’t peaked out to our potential.”