The Central Plains Capitals' Manitoba Female Midget Hockey League season came to an end last night. They fell 6-3 to Pembina Valley in game three of their best-of-five series in Morden.

"If we would've played the whole game like we did at times in the third period it would've probably been a different outcome," says head coach Ferdi Nelissen. "We came out of the first period 0-0 but we only had four shots on net. We stressed more shots and in the third period, we had 11. In Portage for game two, we had 30 shots, and we had to do that all night long. I thought their goalie was fighting the puck and we couldn't take advantage of it."

Pembina Valley held a 3-1 lead going into the third. Amy Klippenstein scored the Caps' lone goal in the second period. The Hawks netted another three in the final twenty minutes, but the Caps didn't roll over. They netted two more of their own but couldn't claw their way back to tie it.

"We're young and it is unfortunate for our graduating players that we didn't step up for three periods tonight," admits Nelissen. "I feel we played one-and-a-half periods, and you can't win hockey games playing that much. This is the first time the girls faced elimination and that's nerve-wracking, and you could see it at times."

Positive Future

"This is a great building block for the girls, though," adds Nelissen. "We're really excited about the core we have coming back. We only lose four players and we've got some really good bantam players coming up, and our region is going to get bigger next year. Hockey Manitoba voted to change the boundaries, so I think we can be a competitor next year. I've told the returning players what I want to see them improve on in the off-season, and it's up to them to get it done."

The Caps finished the year with a 6-19-3 record and were swept in the first round of the playoffs.