Jan 11, 2016 | Christine Beuerman | 600 views
Tough Battles This Past Weekend!
This past weekend our Snyders Graphics PeeWee Girls took part in the South Huron Pink on the Rink tournament. The girls improved all weekend but just fell short in the semi final game to advance to the finals.
In prep for the Pink on the Rink tournament the gals had a league game on Sunday Jan 3 against the Kent County Fillies on their turf. We started this game a bit slow as everyone must have been tried after the Christmas break! We would surrender the first goal to them half way thru the first period. With us gaining some of our pace back, Jaimie Badley would score to tie the game. Maggie Price would earn the assist. In the last minute of play in the first period, the Fillies would strike again to take the lead. Second period started and finished with the scoreboard still the same after the first. What would it take to get our girls going? Next thing we know, the third was on it's way and the flood gates opened - we would score 5 goals in this final period to sell the win. Erica Pletch and Emma French would each score twice with Jaimie Badley adding her second of the game. Taya Cornish, Brooklyn Gethke, Ava Gibbings, Alexa Hahn and Emily Haefling were the gals to set up our goal scorers. Way to go girls - nice come back! Final score of the game was 6-2.
Nice way to start the New Year with a convincing win and to take that momentum into the Pink on the Rink tournament.
The start to the girls exciting and fun tournament was early Friday morning to take on one of our league rivals - the Lucan Irish. We were hoping that this game, we would have the luck! As most of our games, we would give our opponents the opportunity to score first and the Irish did exactly that - they actually led by 2 goals after the first period with their goalie shutting us down. With just a couple of periods left in this game and we knew we needed the win, Emma French would cut their lead with the help from line mate Brooklyn Gethke. Whew, now all we needed was to continue to play hard in the final period. It didn't take long in the last period for Brooklyn Gethke to tie the game at 2 from the great play making off the sticks of Taya Cornish and Emma French but we didn't stop there! Emma French wanted the hat trick of the game and she did just that. She would increase our lead to 4-2 and seal the win. Taya Cornish was by her side for each goal. First game in the books and we would go and get some rest for our afternoon game against the East Lambton Eagles.
Afternoon was here and time for another rematch. We have played the Eagles just a couple of times at a previous tournament so we knew what they were all about. In this game the pace was quick and we would score the first all important goal, Erica Pletch caught the goalie off guard by tapping in the rebound off the shot from Emma French. East Lambton would tie up the game to end the first period. Second period would settle nothing as Makayla Beuerman and their goalie kept the rubber in front of them. Third period was on and East Lambton would take the advantage and the lead 3-1 but our mighty Meteors wouldn't give up as we pulled the goalie to get the extra attacker and with 12 seconds left Brooklyn Gethke would score from a mad scramble of players in front of their net. We would face off again but just ran out of time to tie the game. Buzzer sounded and we loss a close game 3-2. After the first day we had a 1 win, 1 loss record.
Our third and final game of the round robin play was against a strong North Middlesex team. Shots were taken by both teams during the opening period but at the end of the first the scoreboard showed 0. The loan goal scorer in the second period was a rebound goal from Emily Haefling off solid puck passing and shots from Alexa Hahn and Brooklyn Gethke. Yeah, let's keep this going girls! With a quick break before the face off to start the third period, the girls were keen and ready to pounce. Taya Cornish wanted her chance to get on the board and she did exactly that. Great, we were up by 2 goals but with the last minute of play looming, North Middlesex finally figured out how to get that little disk behind our goalie to ruin her shutout bid. Once again our high flying Meteors wouldn't back down and Taya Cornish would grab the puck from our goalie Makayla Beuerman and skate down the ice towards their net and score! Game would end with the good girls on top 3-1. With this win, we would be in second place in our pool which meant that we would have to wait till the others pools games were finished to see if we earned the wildcard spot in semi final action that afternoon. As we all waited patiently to hear, we got the word that we were in! Awesome - Semi Finals here we come!
Saturday Semi Final date with South Bruce Blades was on. We didn't know what to expect in this game as we had never met before but we certainly knew that this game was going to be intense. As each team was warming up their sticks and their goalie and the fans taking their places for this do or die game for a date in the final. Warm up was over and it was time to drop the puck for this all important game. Puck dropped and game on, right off the face off our mighty Meteors skated to their end and scored - just 52 seconds into the game and we had the lead. Erica Pletch earned the notch on her stick with help from line mates Brooklyn Gethke and Taya Cornish. As the period went on we figured this might be a tough game as those Blades just kept pushing. The first period ended with us holding the slim 1 goal lead. Second period was back and fourth as each team continue to take shot after shot hoping that the next one would go in, South Bruce would score to tie the game but as the period was coming to the end, Emma French would score to regain the advantage. With us winning 2-1, the pressure was on for the final period in this barn burner! Everyone would get set to start what we were hoping was the last period of this game. During this period we ran into a bit of penalty trouble and with us trying to fight off a five on three, they were able to score to once again tie the game. We would continue to press hard but with many attempts we just couldn't get that go ahead goal and the buzzer would sound - the game was tied 2-2, a winner needed to be decided so 5 minutes was added to the scoreboard for sudden death overtime. By this time in the game you could tell that both teams were exhausted but each team dug down to give us the edge of your seat ending. Face off and here we go, the puck was passed between us and the Blades in centre ice and with a bit of a scamble one of the Blades grabbed the puck and skated towards our net and shot the puck to squek it in pass our spraling goalie to win the game.
A tough way to end a great weekend of hockey but all the girls should be proud of the way you played, you gave us great games to watch and certainly have all the other teams on alert to watch out for the high flying mighty Meteors!
The girls have a league game at home on Thursday night against the Ilderton Jets and then will look forward to a fun day on Saturday as we are heading to the Bud Gardens to play an exhibition game before watching the London Knights.