For the week of April 24 - 30, 2002

Hard work pays off 
for Fury skaters

Women capture Ogden tournament

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They’ve been practicing hard for the last month and working on strategic play—focusing on their final tournament of the season, which was last weekend at Ogden, Utah.

But there’s one thing you can’t practice for, and that’s having the courage and persistence to come from behind and rally from adversity.

Last weekend, the Fury Women’s Hockey Club passed the comeback test. Unable to rally when needed all season, the Fury corrected that tendency and won the fourth annual Icebreaker tournament.

Fury outscored its opponents 14-6 with balanced scoring. Six different players tallied two goals apiece—Nancy Parsons Brown, Wendy Bevins, Jen Copeland, Lolly Greeninger and Jen Seiller.

They did it in the clutch.

Trailing 1-0 to Jackson Hole (Wyo.) in the semi-final and 1-0 to the Missoula (Mt.) Frost in Sunday’s championship game, the Fury rallied on both occasions for thrilling 2-1 victories.

In fact, in all but one of their five winning tournament games the Fury came from behind to win. "I’d have to say it was one of our biggest accomplishments as a team," said Fury skater Copeland.

She added, "We had very solid breakouts from our defensive zone, we dominated in the neutral zone and then we were able to capitalize in the offensive zone.

"It was great to see the team come together for our last tournament."

The tournament started well as the Fury avenged a tough home loss to the Boise Bombshells and won 3-1 with a 14-5 shooting edge. Parsons Brown, Bevins and Game MVP Copeland scored Fury goals.

Greeninger got the Fury on the board first against the Salt Lake Black Diamonds, then the Fury rallied with two goals in the final 74 seconds of the third to win 3-2. MVP Seiller tallied the equalizer on feeds from Perkins and Copeland, then Perkins put home the winner, unassisted, at 27 seconds.

The third triumph was relatively easy, 4-1 over the Salt Lake Shadows. Parsons Brown, Bevins, Dotty Hand and Copeland did the damage. MVP was Fury goalie Joanie Fox.

It was scoreless into the third during the evenly-played semi-final against Jackson’s Moose, but the Fury got rapid-fire goals by Jenny Gatehouse and MVP Perkins, on a sweet pass from Bevins, for a 2-1 win.

Solid defense propelled the Fury to the 2-1 title game win over Missoula. A second-period goal by Seiller tied it 1-1, then MVP Greeninger buried the game winner early in the third.

Other Fury players were Mia Edsall, Merri Whitehead, Kris Josey and Elizabeth Youmans. The team’s coach was Chris Edwards.

 

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