Minor Bantams Capture Alliance Championship, News, Minor Bantam, 2009-10 (Huron Perth Lakers)

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Mar 22, 2010 | wdekoning | 2696 views
Minor Bantams Capture Alliance Championship
The Minor Bantams captured the Alliance Championship over the weekend with two impressive wins over the Elgin Middlesex Chiefs. They took the 8 point series 9-3. The finals turned out to be exactly as predicted - a hard fought battle.

Both teams should be commended and respected for their determination, focus, and intensity.  Most of the games in this series were decided by a one goal differential.

On Saturday, the Lakers played to a capacity crowd in Milverton and came away with a 4-2 victory. Bayley Boyes started the scoring off for the Lakers in the first period with assists going to Jacob Middleton and Roland McKeown. The Chiefs put pressure on the Lakers and finally equalized in the second period before Drew Gross and Nathan Templeman answered with two more goals. Assists went to Boyes (2) and Gross. In the 3rd the Chiefs scored to make it a 1 goal game, 3-2. The Lakers then found themselves down a man from a 5 minute major penalty. Great penalty killing came from Garrett James, Jared Weishar, Derek Elliot, and Keegan McLelland as they only allowed Elgin Middlesex past the blueline twice. After holding the Chiefs off the scoreboard, Drew Gross scored on a pass from Nathan Templeman to go up by 2 goals. Kent Taylor was outstanding in net once again securing the victory.

 

On Sunday, the Lakers traveled to Strathroy. With a win or a tie they would go home champions. The Lakers got off to a great start scoring the first goal in the first. Keegan McLelland passed the puck to Riley Roberts who took a shot on net. Mackenzie Carter made a great backhand shot off the rebound to bury the puck for the Lakers. The period ended with a 1-0 lead. In the second period, McKeown skated through traffic and fired a hard shot on net to go ahead 2-0. Next, Templeman scored from linemates Boyes and Gross. The Lakers thought they had a comfortable 3-0 lead, but the Chiefs came out strong and the period saw the referees making some questionable calls. The disruption in the flow of the game gave the Chiefs many opportunities and they scored 3 goals to tie it up 3-3. As the Lakers had done often throughout this series, they persevered and dug deep to stay focused. Gross battled in the corner to dish the puck to Boyes who found McKeown for his second goal of the game and a 4-3 lead. The third period was full of end to end action. Both teams realized the end of the game was in sight and gave everything they had. Both Goalies made some brilliant saves. Late in the period, the Chiefs capitalized once again on the powerplay to put the game into overtime. At the three minute mark in the OT period, Quinten Haddock passed it to James who made a spin move and dropped the puck back to a streaking McKeown who buried the puck top corner for his third goal of the game and the victory! Daniel Dekoning was solid in net warding off many Chiefs' attempts. Carter Stewart, Ryan Stulp and Alex Peters played outstanding headsy defense.

 

Coaches are Trevor Jutzi, Scott Pettigrew, and Justin Kreller. This is only the second Alliance AAA Championship for the Lakers Organization in its 14 year history, the first was the Major Bantams in 2001-02. Both Championship teams were coached by Jutzi and Pettigrew. The parents and players would like to thank this stellar group of coaches for an amazing season! Their leadership has been outstanding and collectively they guided the team to the ultimate reward in their minor bantam year.


The Minor Bantam Laker family would like to thank all of their fans and family for actively supporting the boys throughout the series. As well, it was amazing to see the support of all the other Lakers teams and their coaches at the games. Your cheers were heard and motivated the team to always give it their all.  Also, we would like to say a very special thank you to all of our sponsors.


written by Rob James

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