Feb 12, 2013 | Brian Wightman | 1495 views
Bantam Girls Lose Thriller Semi Final at Silver Stick
The Blyth Brussels Bantam girls headed out in the snow on Friday, February 8th to the Caitlyn Cobean Memorial Silver Stick Tournament in Saugeen Shores.
The 12 team tournament had our team playing three round robin games. First up was St. Mary's and the team gave up an early goal and just could not get any offense going and found themselves on the short end of a 2-0 score.
Later on Friday, the match up was against the Tillsonburg Lightning. True to their name Tillsonburg struck like lightning and scored 14 seconds into the game. They built that lead to a 2-1 advantage after one period. Our girls would score 2 quick goals in the second period to take the lead and then added a third period insurance marker to take the game by a 4-2 score.
With a 1-1 record going into the final round robin game, a win would be a must. Standing in the way was a very strong Kincardine team that we had not beat in 2 previous attempts this season. This was a defensive struggle with our team knowing they would have to limit Kincardine on the score board to have any chance, having only scored 3 goals in the previous 2 games against them. Our girls capitalized on a chance early in the third period by banging in a rebound with 12 minutes to play. From there a solid defensive team effort was put forth and Chasity shut the door to preserve the 1-0 victory.
That would leave our team, Kincardine and St. Mary's all with identical records of 2 wins and 1 loss. Time to break out the calculators and determine the goals for and against percentage. Kincardine won the division and our team grabbed the wild card spot based on a 1 % advantage over St. Mary's in the tie breaker formula.
Next up was a Saturday evening semi final encounter with a familiar foe the TCDMHA Rebels from Chatsworth. With four previous league games resulting in 2 wins for each side, this game could go either way. Our team fell behind by a goal in the first period and then evened the score in the second. The third period got going with the score knotted at 1. The Rebels would score 2 quick goals to jump out to the lead with 12 minutes to play. It was time to call our time out and calm the team down and get back to our game. Hard work paid off and with 6 minutes to go the difference was narrowed to one goal. Our girls kept pressing and 2 minutes later the score was tied. It was the Rebels turn to use their time out to settle down. The final four minutes saw our girls apply some pressure without success. On to a 10 minute overtime period that would be played with 3 skaters aside. Neither team seemed very comfortable with this format and it took a few shifts to get going. Both teams would have some chances to score, however, the overtime period still did not produce a winner. Next up was a three player shootout. That did not go our way and we lost for the second time this season in a shootout.
It was great overall effort by our team and they showed their determination throughout the weekend. Good job girls.