Team South Dakota U16 Girls had its chance to revenge its one loss of the tournament in the semifinals Sunday night, played much better, but still fell short in a shootout loss.
Sunday morning, Team SD picked up a 5-1 win over Wisconsin Elite to advance to the semifinals. In the quarterfinal game, Team SD went down 1-0 after the first period but scored three second period goals from Brookings’ Taryn Richter and Briella Vandusseldorp along with Mitchell’s Brynlee Sabers. In the third, South Dakota added two more insurance goals from Mitchell’s Reese Amick and Brookings’ Miyah Foerster. Oahe’s Brylee Kafka would assist on Foerster’s goal. Sioux Falls’ Eva Ramm had to make just 10 saves for the win as Team SD out shot Wisconsin 26-11.
In the semifinal game against the Sno-King Jr. Thunderbirds, the team they lost to 5-0 to begin the tournament, Team SD found themselves down 2-0 towards the end of the first period. Kafka would score her first goal of the tournament to pull Team SD back within one at the end of the first with Sabers and Vandusseldorp both scoring in the second period to give South Dakota the lead at the end of two periods. However, Sno-King would tie the game up at 3-3 and force overtime and ultimately a shootout. In the shootout, Richter would score the lone goal for Team SD as they would be stopped on the next four chances. In the best of five format, also scoring on its first shot was Sno-King and then would score again on the fourth chance to take the game and advance to the championship on Monday.
Team South Dakota finishes the tournament at 3-2 and in the top four of the nation at the Tier II Girls U16 tournament.
