Feb 28, 2018 | Christine Beuerman | 1392 views
Season Recap
The B & S Construction Bantam girls have had a up and down season this year. It was tough battles during our league season but since we have finished with that, we have refocused and started our quest for Provincial and also competed in a couple of tournaments since the beginning of January.
Not much to write about for our league season - it was tough. I think we were all glad to see the end of that part by mid January. Right at the end of our league season the girls started to look forward to a couple of tournaments and playing in a 5 team Provincial playdown series with just the top 2 teams to move on and play at the Provincial tournament April 6-8th.
Our first tournament in the New Year was the BAD Girls tournament (Jan 19-21) - it was a good weekend of hockey for us with our girls getting 2 ties and losing 2 very close games. This seemed to be a bit of a turning point to our season.
A week after the tournament, Guelph traveled to us to play an exhibition game against the Gryphons and the girls played with heart and determination to pull out the win 1-0. With that momentum, our girls started the series for Provincial playdowns with our first game on February 5th against the Huron Heat in their barn. Our girls started off a bit slow but seemed take control of the game and would come away with the victory 3-1. Our goal scores in this game were Erica Pletsch (2) and Nicole Simmons with Jill Ohm earning a hard fought assist. Just a few nights later (Feb 9th) on our home turf we hosted the Lucknow/Wingham 86'ers for our second playdown game of the series. Wow, what a game! Play was back and forth from end to end with each goalie making the saves needed to keep their team in the game. After 3 periods of hockey the scoreboard remained at 0 and a 10 minute sudden death overtime was needed. The puck was dropped and this overtime was on, as parents sat on the edge of their seat, our goalie Makayla Beuerman made a awesome save to keep that little black disk out of our net and gave our fiesty group the chance they needed to skate that puck down the ice and take a shot at their net to have the rebound come to the stick of Emily Haefling who would net that puck and win the game 1-0. Awesome job girls.
With just a couple of days off, we made the drive to Guelph to play the Gryphons again. This time, our girls started off a bit slow again but as the game continued they battled hard for the puck and with some great saves by our goalie Maggie Phillips, the girls skated away with the win 4-2. Goal scores in this game were: Erica Pletsch (2) and Emily Dearing (2). Assisted by Taylor Williams, Sadie Long, Emily Vesnaver, Avery Coxon and Reese Kipfer.
We would have a bit of a break till the Clearview IceCats March Madness in the Valley tournament this past weekend. This was a great weekend of hockey for our girls as they all seemed to have fun and worked hard together to win the silver medal! This special group of gals showed a lot of character this weekend by the plays they made on the ice, hard work and great sportsmanship.
We opened the tournament on Friday morning with a shutout win against the Peterborough Ice Kats. Erica Pletsch and Ava Gibbings would score during this game with Avery Coxon earning the assist. Makayla Beuerman was in net.
The Temiskaming Shores Puckhounds would be our second challenge of this tournament, this team was quick and could move the puck well but we did mange to get the only goal scored against them over the whole weekend in their net off the stick of Taylor Williams from the hard work of Nicole Simmons and Avery Coxon. Maggie Phillips played an amazing game in net as she faced many hard shots. We would just fall short 2-1.
With the first day under our belt, we got ready for our next couple of games on Saturday. Woodstock Wildcats didn't seem to give us much trouble as we sailed away with the 7-0 win in our final game in round robin play. Nicole Simmons was on her game as she got the hat trick of the day and our other goal scorers were, Emily Vesnaver, Reese Kipfer, Erica Pletsch and Emily Dearing. Assists go to: Erica Pletsch, Alexa Hahn, Nicole Simmons, Taylor Williams and Ava Gibbings. Makayla Beuerman was in net.
Later that evening we faced off against the South Huron Sabres, Maggie Phillips got the call for this game and she made the saves she needed to earned the 9-0 shutout win. Goals provided by: Emily Dearing, Erica Pletsch, Taylor Williams, Nicole Simmons, Alexa Hahn, Arianna Catalan, Jill Ohm and Emily Haefling. Assisted by: Reese Kipfer, Alexa Hahn, Nicole Simmons, Jill Ohm, Arianna Catalan, Taylor Williams, Emily Dearing and Ava Gibbings. With this win, we earned the right to play in one of the two semi finals on Sunday morning.
A wee bit earlier than the other two days but are girls were ready to play. Makayla Beuerman got the call for this game. Our Meteors played hard all game and were rewarded with the win 4-0 to put them in the final game. Sadie Long and Ava Gibbings each scored with Alexa Hahn netting the other couple of goals. Nicole Simmons, Alexa Hahn and Sadie Long earning the assists.
Just a few hours later we would face off again against the Temiskaming Shores Puckhounds for the division final. We started the game off with a good pace and kept those girls in check but as the game went on they eventually got the puck in the back of our net. Again Maggie Phillips played her heart out, stopping shot after shot. The buzzer would sound and the game was over, being down 2-0. That's ok girls - you just won the silver medal!
Congratulations to the girls and the coaches for such an exciting weekend of hockey - I know we all enjoyed watching the games and seeing the improvement from game to game and to see the smiles on your faces at the end of it.
With a well derserved rest this week, the girls get ready to face St Marys on Friday night on our turf for game #3 of our quest for Provinicals - so if you're not busy you should come on out and cheer us on.