SANTA CLARITA (CNS) – A girls ice hockey team from Santa Clarita won the Western Girls Hockey League championship in a Denver suburb just days after the father of one player was killed and eight passengers were injured en route to the event in a traffic collision with an out-of-control snow plow in Colorado.
The crash occurred just before 9 a.m. Thursday on Interstate 70 just east of Loveland Pass in Clear Creek County, Colorado, when a Sprinter van carrying members of the Santa Clarita Lady Flyers hockey team was struck by a Colorado Department of Transportation snow plow that crossed the center median, according to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office and the Colorado State Patrol.
Among those in the rented van were three players from the team, which is made up of athletes ages 12 and younger, authorities said.
The driver of the van was killed at the scene. He was identified by the Clear Creek County Coroner’s office as 38-year-old Manuel Alejandro Lorenzana-Villegas. His daughter, Brody Lorenzana, was injured but was released from the hospital in time to attend the final games, according to The Denver Gazette.
Two team members remained hospitalized through the tournament and one played with bruises suffered in the accident but the Santa Clarita Lady Flyers played five games in three days in Littleton, and won all but one, according to the Gazette,.
The team won the championship game 1-0 with a shootout, the newspaper reported.
In addition to the death of Lorenzana-Vellegas, one child was airlifted to a trauma center in critical condition.
Four other youths and three adults were injured and hospitalized.
The four children had all been treated and released by Thursday evening, while two of the adults were in serious condition and one was reported to be in fair condition.
One adult at the scene declined medical transport.
A fundraiser created to “help bring the families home” had raised $72,563 by Monday morning.
“This is a message I never imagined I would send. I’m writing to confirm that there was a terrible traffic accident this morning in Colorado involving members of our Lady Flyer 12AA team,” Prescott Littlefield, president of the Santa Clarita Flyers, said in a statement posted on Instagram. “Words cannot express the heartbreak we are experiencing. Please hold these families in your prayers.”
Littlefield confirmed the van’s driver, who died at the scene, was the father of one of the players on the team.
“We are a very close-knit community so everybody kind of knows everybody … it’s hit everybody kind of hard, self-described hockey mom Kelly Lytle told a reporter outside The Cube in Valencia, where the team practices. “There’s a child there without a parent now and it’s really disheartening to not know and just think about those families.”
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