The Ace Country & Garden Peewee Girls B team represented
Mitchell this past weekend in the Provincial Tournament in the Toronto Area. They played 7 tough
games over 3 days and came away being the 4th best team in the
Peewee B division in Ontario.
Our
little team proved to many larger centres that we had what it takes to be a top
contending team.
As our round robin portion of the tournament started early
Friday morning, our girls were keen and ready to prove that they are not to be
taken lightly as we only have 2 lines and every other team that was in our
division would have a full roster with 3 lines of forward and defense.
The Chatham Outlaws were our first opponents to start our quest at the Provincial tournament. Despite numerous shots and even a goal called off on us, our gals played hard but we just couldn’t seem to get the bounces to go our way and would fall 2-0 to open the tournament. We all headed back to the hotel for a rest before our next battle later that afternoon.
Mid afternoon we headed back to the Century Gardens Complex for our second game against the Toronto Leaside Wildcats. Boy, all I can say was that this game was interesting! First period would settle nothing as the score remained at zero. We had some great chances but their goalie was ready for challenge. With a quick break and a chat from the bench staff, the Meteors lined up at centre to start the second period. With the puck being skated from end to end and shot after shot taken, Jaimie Badley would open the scoring with just a few minutes left in the period from the play making of Nicole Simmons and Taya Cornish. As time continued to count down off the clock, a battle for the puck behind the net would result in a questionable penalty for us and put us a girl down for the remainder of the game. As the period came to the end, the Mitchell fans just couldn’t believe the outcome of the call from the refs. The final period started and we would continue to press hard and I guess play very aggressive to the puck, according to the other team fans, as those girls from Toronto just couldn’t seem to handle the “country power” of the Meteors. With the period half over, Emma French would net her first of two goals this period with the help of Brooklyn Gethke and Meg Schoonderwoerd. Awesome! Just minutes later, Emma French netted her second one with Brett Gethke and Erica Pletsch earning the assists. We were leading 3-0 and that would be the final score at the end of the game. Makayla Beuerman would earn the shutout.
With our record of 1 win and 1 loss, our final game of the round robin on Saturday morning would determine if we would move on as we either had to finish in first or second place in our pool to move on.
Saturday morning was again another early morning game – 8am against another new team for us, the Vaughan Flames. Our group of gals started the game strong and would finally be rewarded with a goal in the last minute of play in the opening period. Jaimie Badley would net that little black disk from the pass of Emma French. Right on girls, let’s keep this pace going. As the second period was set and the clock started to count down, it didn’t take long for Emma French to score unassisted to increase our lead 2-0. During the middle of this period a flurry of players and a mad scramble of sticks on the puck in front of our net, our goalie Makayla Beuerman would finally get it covered for the whistle but with tempers running a bit high, some pushing and shoving started and would eventually send a girl from each team to the box with us having to serve the extra time for the extra shot at their player. As the penalty was coming to the end, Vaughan finally got on the board to cut our lead 2-1. Tough one girls. The period would end with us still leading. The final 12 minutes in this do or die game for us started and the girls dug down deep and continued to press hard to be denied shot after shot by the Flames net minder to keep the score the same. As the final minutes showed on the clock, Jaimie Badley was in the right place at the right time to take the shot and score to give the good gals a 3-1 lead. This time, Erica Pletsch and Arianna Catalan would earn the assists. Vaughan didn’t give up and would score to keep the score in check 3-2. Puck dropped at centre and away we went, puck was sent end to end but the clock would finally buzz and we won 3-2. Nice work girls – with this win we would finish first in our pool and give us the right to move on to the O/T games mid afternoon to determine which teams would be playing in the quarter finals that night.
We had a little bit of a break and back to the arena for our 1pm game against the Whitby Wolves. This was another must win game as the winner would move on to the quarter finals that night (Saturday) and loser goes home. As warm up was complete, the coaches gave their final words of advice and the game was on. Just minutes into this opening period, Whitby would be called for too many players and we took full advantage of that fact, the dynamic duo of Nicole Simmons and Arianna Catalan moved the puck all around in the Wolves end to pass it back to Taya Cornish at the blue line to rip that puck pass the goalie top shelf to score, wow, what at shot! Not much else happened after that, the score was still in our favour 1-0. Second period would see the Wolves tie it up and end with the deadlock of 1-1. The third period was looming and all the Mitchell fans knew this was going to be tough as our little two-line team would be getting tried and we didn’t want to see this go into an overtime. Whitby managed to get one pass our netminder to take the lead, let’s go girls and get it back! Our feisty group started once again at centre and took control of the play to set up their plays but would shut down by the Wolves defense and goalie. Nicole Simmons took matters into her own hands and drove hard to the net with the puck in hand to bet the Whitby goalie to tie the game up at 2-2. With the final minutes left in this barn burner and neither team willing to back down, it made the rest of the game really hard to watch for both coaches and fans. Back and fourth went the puck and save after save by each goalie, finally we got the chance we needed to break out of our end by the stick handling of Ava Gibbings and hemmed those Wolves in their end. A few quick shots taken by Erica Pletsch and Arianna Calatan would somehow stay out of the net but with 0:08 seconds left on the clock, Jaimie Badley was right in front of the net to get her stick on the puck to lift it over the sprawling goalie to score, YES, YES, YES! With that goal, we won the game 3-2 and would move on to the quarter finals that night. What a great game, that was tough!
Saturday night and our quarter final opponent was the Twin Centre Hurricanes, a familiar league rival. Our determined bunch started this game off a bit slow and sluggish as they had already played two games earlier that day but got their legs going and settled in nicely. Alexa Hahn moved the puck up the ice to the stick of Nicole Simmons to set up our first goal of the game. Nice work girls! With the first period over and us leading 1-0, we just needed to continued this pace. Second period started with Jaime Badley winning the face off and passing the puck back to Nicole Simmons to skate towards the net and score her second one of the night. Wow, our girls are on fire! Nothing seems to be slowing down these Meteors! A few more shots taken but nothing came about it and the score after two periods of play was 2-0 for us, just one more period girls. With the final period set to start and just 12 minutes to wait and see if we will be one of the four teams playing for a medal on Sunday, this period was going to be intense as tempers from the Hurricanes were starting to fly high. A roar from the crowd and this final period was started. Right from the face off, the Hurricanes were aggressive and wanted to control the game but our gritty group would get in their way and change their plans. The penalty box was a bit busy this period as the refs did their best to keep the game in check. The final minutes were upon us with us leading by 2-0 and we would strike again to change the scoreboard to 3-0 from the efforts of Jaimie Badley. The fans counted down with the clock and the Mitchell Meteors would take the win 3-0 and Makayla Beuerman earned her second shutout of the tournament. Congratulations girls – your moving on to the semi-finals tomorrow (Sunday) to find out which colour of medal your playing for.
With five games done and a tried and sore bunch of girls, we headed back to the hotel for some much- needed rest. We found out that we would be playing another league rival in our semi final, the Waterloo Ravens.
Sunday morning was upon us and we were up bright and early as the semi final game was set for 8:15am. With everyone still stiff and sore from our previous day’s play and our short bench to start with, it was going to be a battle right to the end. Waterloo started the game strong and controlled the play for the majority of the game as we were just not able to keep up with the quick pace. The game would remain scoreless until the final minutes of the third period when Waterloo score to win the game 1-0. The girls would get re-focused for our bronze medal game later that afternoon against the TCDMHA Rebels. The ice was set and ready to be marked up but for our Meteors it was a battle that we just couldn’t win, our girls left it all out on the ice as we would end the game down 2-0.
Congratulations girls on a great weekend of hockey and being the 4th best team in all of Ontario in the Peewee B division. I know you turned a lot of heads as everyone watching was shocked and impressed on how well our team of two lines played.
It has been an up and down year for this group of gals but you should be very proud of what you have accomplished and how you represented Mitchell Minor Hockey!
Just a few people that we want to thank – Ang Badley for being an awesome manager, Beth Schoonderwoerd for being our parent rep and Rob Simmons for leading the girls in their dry land training sessions.
A big thank you to our amazing coaching staff – Jamie Gethke, Denny Horan, Bree Schoonderwoerd, Amy Campbell and Jason Horan for all the time and effort you have given to the girls over the season.