Mitchell squirt team wins Montana tournament

BILLINGS, Mont. — A team of Mitchell hockey players took home the “Squirt Showdown” championship last weekend in Billings, Mont.

Teams from Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota competed over the weekend and the Mitchell team went undefeated to take home the championship trophy, which can be seen at Pizza Ranch.

The team won by scores of 1-0, 5-4, 4-3 and 4-1 in the tournament.

In the 4-3 victory in the semifinals, the team trailed 3-0 to Billings Yellow going into the final period. Mitchell’s team scored the game-winning goal with two seconds left in the game.

The team also won all three of their Sugar Shootout competitions, which were shootouts among the teams in the first three rounds that took place between the second and third periods. Winners of the shootout received bags of candy.

Coach Brian Nash was extremely proud of the team, which consisted of Nick Lord, Nick Robinson, Grace Halvorson, Isabel Bathke, Austin Kerr, Nathan Zimmerman, Payton Olson, Carter Stucky, Faith Halvorson, Peyton Nash, Landon Huls, Zach Mohr, Josh Grosdidier and Jace Grosdidier.

Nash led all scorers with five goals and two assists on the weekend, including the lone goal in the team’s 1-0 win over Billings Red in the opening round.

Zimmerman was in goal for the shutout victory as well as the 4-1 championship game.

John Lord and Jamie Grosdidier joined Nash on the coaching staff over the weekend.

“They had a blast. These are teams that they’ve never seen and obviously they had a lot of nerves going out and wondering what level of hockey they were going to see,” Lord said. “To go out there and compete the way they did, they’re going to remember that for a long time.”

Tags: sports, updates, hockey