Ilyssa Flemington was the Wild Women's MVP against Kingston Diamonds (Photo by Paul Breeze)
Sunday
23rd November 2025 – WNIHL Division 1 North: Widnes Wild Women 0 –
Kingston Diamonds 18
The Widnes Wild Women’s challenging start to the NIHL Division 1 North
season continued with a 0-18 defeat to league leaders Kingston Diamonds at Planet
Ice Widnes on Sunday.
The Hull based table toppers arrived with an unbeaten record from their 5
games so far and fresh off the back of a 17-0 hammering of Solway Sharks, so this
encounter always looked likely to be an uphill struggle for the Wild Women, who
are new to the division this season.
Kingston opened the scoring 90 seconds into the game, added a second goal
just shy of 4 minutes and were 0-5 up by the half way point of the first
period.
There followed a welcome lull in the onslaught and the Wild Women creditably
managed to keep the Diamonds out for the next 10 minutes to keep the score to
0-5 at the first period break.
The first 13 minutes of the second period were also goalless and, while Kingston
certainly had much of the play, they had trouble getting through the stubborn Widnes
defence.
But the pressure paid off and Kingston eventually found the back of the net
again - and three more unanswered goals followed to give them a convincing 0-9
lead at the second interval.
Widnes didn’t actually play badly in this game and, on the occasion when
they were able to put an attack together, looked more than capable of scoring. In
the Wild net Stephanie Drinkwater put in another of her heroic performances - getting
bashed and battered along the way – and did much to keep the score down.
9 more goals followed for Kingston in the third period, although it wasn’t
all one way traffic and Widnes actually had more shots on goal themselves than
they had managed in the first two periods combined.
Much of the damage was done by Diamonds players CJ Ashton – a former GB international
player who also plays regular NIHL (men’s) hockey with the Altrincham Aces - and
Lydia Lutwyche - a GB Under 18 player who is on a 2-way with Women’s Elite League
side Solihull Vixens – who each bagged 6
goals in the game.
The MVP (Most Valuable Player) awards are once again this season being sponsored by niche publishers Ice Hockey Review and were presented by match volunteer Lynda Bird. They went to Beatrice Lester for Kingston and Ilyssa Flemington for Widnes.
By a strange quirk of the fixtures calendar, the same two teams meet again this Sunday 30th November at Planet Ice Widnes, 4.25pm face off, in what is sure to be another entertaining encounter.
