After three years waiting for her chance to boot the Fraser Valley Rush out of the playoffs, Staysha Hiebert finally got that sweet taste of revenge.
It happened in overtime Saturday in Game 2 of the beat-of-three BC Elite Hockey League female triple-A semifinal series in Langley with the Northern Capitals on the power play in 3-3 game.
“We lost to them in the final in my first year so this was definitely a long time coming, a pretty amazing feeling, we’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said Hiebert, whose Capitals face the Greater Vancouver Comets in the championship series this weekend in Coquitlam.
The 17-year Hiebert, a native of Cecil Lake, near Fort St. John., is in her fourth season with the Capitals and is the only holdover from the team that lost in a three-game series to the Rush in the 2022 final.
On Saturday the Capitals fell behind 3-1 midway through the third period and there was just eight minutes left in regulation time when Breanna Hunter and Nicole Bateman scored back-to-back goals 41 seconds apart to tie it up.
In the third minute of overtime, just 10 seconds after Rush forward Kakayla Beza was sent off for slashing, Paige Cheek got the puck back to Hiebert, the power-play quarterback, and her point shot was stopped but Cheek pounced on the rebound to score the 4-3 series winner.
“We refused to lose on Saturday and came back from 3-1,” said Hiebert.
“We’re a lot closer as a team, it feels like. We’re just a resilient group of girls who just love hockey and want to win. That was a pretty great feeling.”
This is the first time since their appearance in the 2022 final. The Caps finished fifth in each of the previous two seasons.
“Our coaching staff has been really diligent with expectations, accountability and all those things you need to implement a winning culture and I think we’ve peaked at the right time,” said head coach Hayden-James Berra, who works with Capitals assistant coaches Shayden Hiebert (Staysha’s older brother) and Sydney Jordan.
“This past weekend at Fraser Valley was an example of all the hard work that’s been out in and just the unconditional buy-in that these girls have given us.”
The Comets ran roughshod over the other four teams in the BCEHL female division and cruised to the regular-season title with a 28-2-2-0 record. The Capitals finished third (16-15-0-1) and lost all eight games to the Comets, getting outscored 44-10.
But two of their most recent meetings, including a 4-3 overtime loss Dec. 22, were one-goal games and the Capitals don’t mind at all going in as the underdogs this weekend.
“It’s definitely a big game and they’re a really good team but they haven’t seen this side of us yet, they haven’t seen us play the way we did last weekend,” said Hiebert, a University of Windsor recruit for next season. “We’re just planning to bring that and hopefully they will be good games.
“Our systems have gotten really dialed in the last couple weeks and it feels like we’ve really found a level of compete we that we were working towards for the year. We’ve all gotten better as a group, it feels like.”
Goalie Payton Planetta shut out the Rush in Game 1 of the semifinal on Friday and 16-year-old centre Maddy Niesh, called up from the Prince George single-A team, notched the only goal in a 1-0 victory.
“I think in that game we triple them in shots and we played our systems to a tee and we refused to lose battles and refused to give up shots in the net-front,” said Berra. “In the second game, because Fraser Valley was playing for their season they piled it on us pretty hard and were able to get a 3-1 lead on us. But our girls simply refused to lose and were able to score two goals in under a minute with less than seven minutes left to push it to overtime and they got it over the finish line with a perfectly-executed power-play goal.”
Berra said Caps leading scorer Gabriella Meier (14-6-20), a Red Deer College recruit, has been a big reason for the Caps success in the second half of the season and Cheek (4-15-19) has been the team’s top playmaker at centre. He also credited goalie Planetta’s exceptional rebound control, quick glove hand and ability to anticipate the play for giving the Caps the playoff momentum they’ve built heading into the weekend against the Comets.
“It’s obviously going to be a very a steep challenge, but we have had a couple games where we’ve gone the distance with them and on the same token they haven’t seen this version of us,” said Berra. “We’ve evolved immensely since that last matchup and I think with the way we’re rolling right now we’re going to give them a heckuva matchup in the final.”
Friday’s game at Planet Ice in Coquitlam starts at 5 p.m., with Game 2 to follow Saturday at 5:45 p.m. If a third game is needed that would be played Sunday at 1 p.m.
The Capitals-Comets series winner will represent BC in a best-of-three Pacific playoff next weekend against the Alberta champions. The winner of that will go to the Esso Cup tournament April 20-26 in Lloydminster, Alta.
