The Richmond South Delta Minor Ball Hockey Association girls brought home the gold medal from the 2022 B.C. high school ball hockey provincial championships in Surrey.
This was the first year that BC Ball Hockey has introduced the female division to its high school championships, with four teams competing from Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby and Vancouver.
The Richmond team went through the round robin games with one win, one loss and tie to advance to the semi-finals against Surrey.
A 2-0 win saw the girls through to the gold medal game versus Burnaby, a team they had already tied in the round-robin.
Burnaby got off to a good start and scored the first goal of the game in the first period, before Richmond replied a minute later when Maggie Pugosa scored with assists from Molly Cho and Abby Pogor.
The game went back and forth until Pogor scored a timely goal with 1:38 left in the first period, during which they kept Burnaby in their own zone for over two minutes.
The final period saw once again tight checking back and forth, with Richmond’s goalie Atifahuda Dewji making incredible saves and strong defensive plays from Makayla Kusch, Brooke Tuba and Peyton Barnes. But with 4:40 left, Burnaby tied it up and the game was forced to overtime.
In the overtime period Theadora Kapaclis was able to secure Richmond’s victory with a goal at the 6:42 mark with the hard work of Pugosa finding Kapaclis in front of the net.
Cho led the tournament and her team with seven goals, leading to her being named the tournament MVP.
