The journey to Saskatoon was paved with gold for 琉璃神社鈥檚 U16A Elite ringette team.

The B.C. champion Elite returned home with the top prize from the 2018 .

After losing its opening game, 琉璃神社 ran the table to capture the gold medal, clinching the title Sunday with a 7-3 victory over Team Alberta in the final.

鈥淥ur goal all season was to be in the gold medal game (of westerns) and our group never wavered from their goal,鈥� said head coach Todd MacMillan.

The Elite lost 6-2 to Alberta to open the tournnament, then reeled off wins over the host team (5-1), Team Manitoba (7-1), Team Sask (8-2), and Manitoba (7-0) again in the semifinal.

鈥淥ur motto all year has been 鈥榃hy Not Us鈥� because we needed to believe that we were capable of winning this tournament,鈥� MacMillan added.

鈥淲e knew it was going to be hard and there would be a lot of work to make it happen but together we kept our end goal always in front of us and never looked back. I don鈥檛 know if I have ever seen a group of athletes commit so fully to the systems and the process, which at the end of the day made us a tough team to play against and gave us the strength to never quit.鈥�

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