RAYNHAM – All-Star events generally serve as a time to take away from the coarseness of a season and celebrate playing. And the New England Future Stars Girls U14 celebrated in style on Sunday at the Raynham IcePlex, as they kicked off the second of the two-day event with something the league’s Summer Classic had never seen before.

Though there was a new format to this season’s Skills Challenge, things did not venture into truly unfamiliar territory until after completion of the three main events. Before that point, it was the Boston Brahmas winning the Team Relay, South Shore Sabercats in the Agility Race and Southeastern Grizzlies posting the best time in the Scoring Challenge.

The highlight of the Skills Challenge, however, is an event that happened by mere coincidence. With goaltenders newly added to the Skills Challenge this year, by chance the Sabercats, Grizzlies and Brahmas were all represented in the goaltending department in addition to their four-player skills team. When the three squads all tied with five points after three events, an additional Team Relay took place to decide the overall champion. Generally a four-skater race, this time around it was five.

Leonie Kuehberger of the Sabercats, Ellee Kopecky of the Grizzlies and the Brahmas Averill McCorkle all led off their team in the tiebreaking race, the Future Stars first ever All-Star goalie race. All three fared well in the unusual circumstance, but the race ended with Kopecky atop the medal stand with teammates Avery Korzeniowski, Diana Poland, Lauren Turner and Madison Ferrara. The Grizzlies the 2016 Girls U14 Skills Challenge winner.

Goaltending highlights continued into the first half of the Girls U14 All-Star Game, scoring unusually low for such an event as Kuehberger, McCorkle and Kopecky – who all saw action in the frame – controlled their opposition from their respective creases. The game going into the halftime break tied at 1-1.

It was not until the second half neared the 10:00 mark the scoring took off when the North Shore Stingrays Sophia Kennedy gave the Gold All-Stars their first lead of the contest, her score making it 2-1.

The second of the game from South Shore’s Delaney Williams made it 2-2 just a few minutes later, but her score was bested by the second of the game from Faith Mancini of the Marlboro Thunder. Mancini’s score at 18:45 of the second half gave the Gold All-Stars a 3-2 lead. A lead they would not relinquish, but only furthered when Caroline O’Connell of the Natick Chill brought the score to its 4-2 final at 21:20.

The two-goal performances by Mancini and Williams earned to two All-Star forwards the game’s First and Second Star honors, respectively, while Kennedy was named Third Star of the Game.