The Steinbach Regional Secondary School’s first season in the Winnipeg Women’s High School Hockey League is over.

The Sabres lost back-to-back 4-0 games to the Glenlawn Lions last week and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

“It was a great year for us and we made so many improvements,” said SRSS head coach Kaleigh Henrikson who thought game two at the T.G. Smith Centre last Wednesday was one of the best games she saw her team play all season. “There was definitely some tears - some happy mixed with some sad. Our grade 12’s were pretty upset because obviously it was the last time for them playing for our school as well for some of them it was their last time playing hockey. That’s always very emotional. We got our grade 12’s out on the ice altogether for the last minute of play so they were able to get out for one last skate.”

Those three graduating players who played their last shift in a Sabres uniform in the final 60 seconds of game two were captain Kendra Wiens, assistant captain Madison Gigolyk and Nina Fenton who played defence, wing and centre in season one and even strapped on the pads and played in net for one game.

The Sabres won just two of 24 league games in Divison Three and Henrikson, who has 11 years of coaching experience and returned behind the bench for the first time in three years, said season one in the WWHSHL was what she expected.

“I had always walked into a team that had girls who had been playing for years, and years, and years so this year was a building year for us. There were some challenges to that, that I hadn’t faced as a coach before but they were great challenges and it only made me stronger. This was by far my best year of coaching that I ever had.”

Putting the puck in the net was the biggest challenge for the first-year Sabres as they scored just 10 goals in season one.

Sydney Ouellet had half those SRSS goals.

The rest went to Sydney Salamandyk, Kendra Wiens, Layne Theriault and Kaitlyn Kantimer.

One of the most memorable goals of season one belonged to Nina Fenton.

She scored in the 17th round of the shootout as Steinbach Regional defeated Kildonan East 2-1 in the middle of December.

“We realized very quick that this was going to be a building and a development year for us and we changed up our plan pretty quickly once we saw that and that’s totally fine,” Henrikson said. “I had to remind myself very early on in the season that we are playing against teams that have been in the league for years and who have girls start in grade 9 and go through their team all the way to grade 12. We didn’t have that.”

“We were starting from the ground up and this is not something that myself or my coaching staff had ever done before. From the start of the season in September to now - our team is unrecognizable. We are a completely different team and that’s not just me saying that but referees as well as other coaches in the league have commended us for that too.”

Henrikson says work on season two will begin soon.

“We have our Grade 8 Open House at the beginning of March at the SRSS and then probably sometime in May, myself and the coaching staff are going to go out to all the middle schools and we’re going to do some campaigning for the team, promote it, and get it out there.”