Adirondack 46ers 16U girls hockey set plans for nationals.

Apr. 2—MALONE — Schools are out for Spring Break and kids are already deep into their vacation.

It's a little different for the Adirondack 46ers 16U girls hockey team.

"Honestly, there's nowhere else I'd rather spend my vacation," Kori Lynne Lamoy said. "I just love being on the ice."

That's where she, and the remainder of her team, will be this week as they head to Green Bay, WI for the Girls Tier II 16U USA Hockey National Championships.

"I think it's an exciting opportunity for our team to go," Adyson Campbell said. "We're going to Wisconsin, which is far away and something new. It's giving us a chance to play different teams we don't know."

One thing the 46ers do know is the teams they face in the opening rounds. From April 3-5, they'll play against the Green Bay Bobcats, South Pittsburgh Rebellion and Team North Dakota.

"The girls are super dedicated and a lot of them play for their local high school teams as well," head coach Matt Jones said. "To play for the Sixers is kind of an extra club hockey thing. We had a really successful year and I think a lot of these girls come and are ready to go.

"And they played together now for a couple of years. Two years ago, we basically had the same team and we lost in the semifinals and State Championship, which didn't allow us to go to Nationals. So this is kind of, I'd say almost retribution year to get back."

And what a fantastic year it has been for the team. They finished the season with a record of 25-12-4 over the campaign and won two tournaments: the Vermont Fall Foliage Classic and the Play for a Cure Tournament.

What makes this team special is how far the team reaches in players. It's truly a regional team as it has players from Ballston Spa to Clifton Park, as well as areas from all across Clinton and Franklin Counties.

It's awesome," Jones said. "These girls have a lot of dedication because when we have girls coming from Plattsburgh or, you know, North Lawrence and Winthrop. It's about a 45 minute to an hour drive for them to come to practice.

"These girls are dedicated to hockey and all of them have a passion for the sport and they're all serious hockey players. They would love to go on and do something with hockey after they get done with high school and club hockey and stuff like that."

Team captain Olivia Laflesh said it's very easy for the team to come together.

"We're all very close," she said. "Playing together for the years we have just makes it easier for the team to come together. No matter where else we play."

That camaraderie builds a belief in each other that team members will know where each other are during high tempo situations.

"I know we all really know what we're doing," Avery Parker said. "And it's just easy to come together as a team. It's more fun. Like it's a club, we all just have fun here."

Parker added that while the season has been good, the team still has plenty to work on heading into nationals.

"To play confident, go hard and start out strong," she said. "We struggle starting out strong. We really need to focus on that and like hitting the net because we struggle with that too."

Campbell agreed saying the first period is where they need to put the focus.

"I think we've had ups and downs," she said. "The first period hasn't been as strong. Our second and third periods are where we get better. So I think we need to work on our first period."

Even with the team showing focus on what they need to work on, one would think it's a lot to ask for a kid to manage school, high school hockey and even the beginning of spring sports.

While Lamoy joked she was able to manage despite her teachers giving her a lot of homework, all the players said it was easy to balance everything on their schedule.

"It's tough and I think if they're saying it's easy, it's because they're just used to it by now because they have to be dedicated and want to do this," Jones said. "A lot of them probably had, you know, lacrosse practices in the morning or track and field practice this morning.

"They still come out here and they're gonna go as hard as they can in practice. A lot of times, when they're coming from school, if it's during the week or whatever, they have school late and come here. So these girls are definitely more dedicated than they want to portray they are."

Jones also echoed the statements of the players when talking about the expectations that simply they want to win.

"I think our expectations are that we're going there to win it," he said. "You know we haven't won a national championship before as a program.

"The reason why we're showing up here and practicing and all this stuff before is because we're going into it with the expectation that we want to win. and I think if we were going there with any other expectations, then we shouldn't be making that 16-hour drive to get there."

While the team has the expectation of going to win. It's still a surreal moment for each member of the team.

"I've never been more excited," Laflesh said. "I feel like we all deserve it. I'm personally over the moon, it's something I've always dreamed about."

Tomorrow that dream becomes a reality. The entire region will be in support of the Adirondack 46ers 16U girls hockey team.

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Tournament Schedule

April 3

Adirondack 46ers vs. Green Bay Bobcats, 5 p.m. (CST)

April 4

Adirondack 46ers vs. South Pittsburgh Rebellion, 1 p.m. (CST)

April 5

Adirondack 46ers vs Team North Dakota, 9 a.m. (CST)

Adirondack 46ers Roster/Hometown

#3- Katie McCormick (Plattsburgh)

#5- Anna Monette (Malone)

#6- Sophia Amaya-Gutierrez (Plattsburgh)

#9- Rowan Wood (Morrisonville)

#10- Amaya Abellard (Plattsburgh)

#11- Adyson Campbell (Plattsburgh)

#13- Audrina McAllister (North Lawrence)

#14- Evelyn Noakes (Clifton Park)

#15- Kylee Surprenant (Mooers Forks)

#16- Alexis Smith (Winthrop)

#18- Julia Jackson (Akwesasne)

#28- Avery Parker (Chazy)

#29- Kori-Lynne Lamoy (Peru)

#32- Lily Pratt (Chazy)

#55- Aspen Caswell (Balston Spa)

#88- Olivia Laflesh (Malone)