Jan Rumble, Shelly Laukitis, Karyn Noyes, Ingrid Harrald, Kay Brown, Di Carbonell and Emily Hutchison from the Homer Divas Women’s Hockey Team headed to Eagle River, Wis., last weekend to play in the USA Pond Hockey National Championships. 

The attending Diva members moved up a division after winning the Championship Trophy in 2015. This year the Women’s bronze division had teams mostly from the Midwest, ranging from Chicago, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.

For their first game on Friday, the Divas took on the Special Ops team from Wisconsin. Both teams started slow, acclimating to the pond ice, but the Divas settled into their skates quickly — scoring the first two goals — Karyn Noyes finding the net first followed by Ingrid Harrald. Soon the Divas were dominating with goals by Shelly Laukitis, Di Carbonell, Emily Hutchison and Kay Brown. 

The Ops were only able to score one goal leaving the Divas with a solid lead of 6-1 at halftime. The second half continued to be a successful passing and scoring game with additional Diva goals scored by Laukitis, Jan Rumble, Noyes and Carbonell. The Ops found the net a few times, but not enough to keep the Divas from winning their first game with a solid lead of 10-4. MVP of the game was Karyn Noyes.

The Divas returned to the ice Saturday morning to play Just Ad Ice from Chicago. The game was faster paced and more challenging but the Divas took the lead early with a goal from Jan Rumble. The Divas’ goal was answered minutes later by the Ice, giving them their only goal of the game. The Divas dialed in their team play and outskated the Ice to a 10-1 Win. Jan Rumble scored three more goals, for a total of four, and other goals were scored by Harrald, Hutchison (2), Laukitis (2), and Carbonell. 

MVP of the game was hands down Jan Rumble.

The Divas had their hardest game on Saturday afternoon against UP’ers from Michigan. The game was physical and the Divas were unable to match the speed. They fell behind 5-1 in the first half. 

Shelly Laukitis scored the first and only goal of the half. In the second half, the Divas changed strategy and played a more defensive game. They were able to score a few times when Kay Brown drew a penalty and then Ingrid found the net. Unfortunately, the other team overpowered the Divas and the game ended 11-5 for the UP’ers. MVP was Kay Brown.

The Divas finished regulation play in second place and were set to play the UP’ers again in the championship on Sunday. They continued to play a defensive game and held the UP’ers to a 3-0 lead in the first half. Second half the Divas focused on scoring and ran the score up to 4-2 with a goal by Di Carbonell and a penalty goal awarded for unsportsmanlike conduct by the UP’ers. 

With three minutes left it seemed like the Divas were going to be able to make a comeback, until the UP’ers scored their fifth and final goal. The Divas just could not find the back of the net. Final score was 5-2, with Divas taking home the second place trophy. However, the Divas plan to regain their championship status next year.