A group of young ladies were hugging, laughing, celebrating and feeling on top of the giant rock.
Feeling on top of the world is part of what the Girls Rock Lacrosse tournament is all about.
"I like that everyone gets a chance to play – and for once the girls get to be on top of everything," Okotoks Novice Raiders Ashlyn MacKay said after their gold winning medal game. "It feels really good (to win)."
The Novice Raiders were the lone team to medal after downing the Calgary Hornets 6-1 at the Murray Arena on Sunday.
They were led by a tank in net – a Sherman Tank.
Goalie Lexi Sherman was named the Raiders MVP after a near shutout performance. She kept the Hornets off the scoreboard for much of the game despite their buzzing around the net. Sherman made a brilliant save when she got her leg out to stop a Hornet at point-blank range on a breakaway with the Raiders hanging on to a precarious 3-1 lead at the time.
The tournament and the win were special for the young netminder.
"It means a lot to me because I haven't got a lot of gold medals before, maybe one or two," Sherman said.
Sherman comes by her prowess in net honestly. Her great-grandfather Peter was a goalie for the Canadian national team in the 1920s.
She is also proud of her nickname ‘Tank.’
"They call me that because of running over people and I am big with a tank," she said with a smile.
The tournament had 44 teams spread out in the midget, bantam, novice and novice divisions. This was the first year it was held in the Okotoks area.
"We host this as our own club, a small association, and we wanted to move it back so it would be local to support the community here," Landymore said. "It would have helped the restaurants and hotels, absolutely."
The tournament, the biggest girls box lacrosse tournament in the world, more importantly boosted the game.
"It's the only all girls tournament for lacrosse in Alberta," Landymore said. "The most important there is to build the game for the girls."
Don Payne, director of organizational development for the association, agreed.
“This helps give the girls something to aspire to," he said. "We ran this tournament successfully in Calgary for years and this year we decided to bring it to Okotoks."
The Okotoks location did pose some difficulties for the tournament as it was run in two places, the Crescent House Regional Field House and the Okotoks Recreation Centre.
While the Novice Raiders had the tank, the Okotoks association had an army of volunteers.
"It (the two locations) meant that we had to have nearly twice as many volunteers and there is almost two command centres that is needed," Payne said. "We always wanted it in Okotoks and we always wanted to run it in Okotoks… I think it was successful."
The volunteers’ efforts were noticed by the Tank.
"I think it would take a lot of work to do this kind of stuff," Sherman said.
The results of the gold medal games at the tournament were: Novice — Okotoks Raiders 6 Calgary Hornets 1; Peewee — Calgary Sabrecats(3) 6 Sherwood Park 5; Bantam — Calgary 4 Sherwood Park 2; Midget — Sherwood Park Titans 9 Calgary Hornets (1) 1
