All-girls NorCal hockey team beat Fresno rivals twice despite bullying on the ice

VALENCIA, SANTA CLARITA (KABC) -- The San Jose Junior Sharks, an all-girls hockey team, beat an all-boys Fresno squad in a game and delivered some real life lessons on the ice.

The only all-girls team in the state hockey championship took on the boys in a playoff game. The age 12 and under competitors battled it out against their rivals, The Fresno Monsters.

The Monsters are a team the girls beat before, but it has at times been a rough journey.

"We'd be called names. We'd be pushed around a lot. We just didn't really like it," Rayna said.

The team endured bullying and name-calling from those rivals.

"They were saying that we couldn't play as hard as them and they were swearing at us and just being really rude," Kyla Kippen-Mallais said.

So how did the girls respond? They beat the Monsters twice and became the first all-girls team to win a Northern California championship.

"The girls fed off that throughout this entire season. Every time the boys went low with comments or with unsportsmanlike contact, they went high," assistant coach Jared Beck said.

The victory boosted the confidence of the talented young athletes.

"We can be just as good as boys and better. We don't want to take that from them. We want to prove that we can be just as good as boys," Keira Kippen-Mallais said.

The girls did not win their matchup on the ice Saturday night, but they have proven they have what it takes to compete with anyone.