Flags Fought A Hard
Battle Came Up Short To End Season
February 15, 2014
By Pat Brethauer
After being down 3 games in Great
Lakes Jr. C playoffs against the Blenheim Blades the
Flags battled back to win 2 games in a row and
brought the game back home before a crowd of 313
fans for game six. In the sixth and what
turned out to be their final game the Flags lost 4 -
2 to the Blades.
On the power play Mooretown scored
the only goal in the first period on a hard slap
shot by Matt Brandon. Brett Thompson slipped
the second goal to give the Flags the 2 - 0 lead.
Blenheim's first goal was scored after Kellen
Kaniecki shot from the Blue line took a bad bounce
and went into the net.
"It was tough to lose when you had a
two goal lead early in the game." Assistant Coach
Joel Workman said. "After that bounce you
could see the turning point in the game that we
never got control of the game after that."
Kellen Kaniecki added his second goal later in the
second period and Cam Aitken and Derek Muzzatti
scored in the third.
Both sides had five power play
opportunities, Mooretown scored the only power play
goal.
Blenheim outshot the Flags 48 - 28.
Brandon Johnson was outstanding throughout the
playoffs made 44 saves in the final game. Adam
Leboeuf earned the win with 26 saves.
"We are really proud of the way they
did battle back, it's not easy to play with your
back against the wall." Workman said
"We knew we had the effort. It was good to see them
do it and at the end of the day I think we just ran
out of gas. Earlier in the year we had a lot of
injuries and some guys are banged up we did the best
we could with what we had."
Missing from the line up in the
latter part of the season were Captain Jeff
Schroeter (broken ankle) and Chad Beauchamp (broken
hand) and Brandon Layman who was signed by Sarnia
Legionnaires.
The Flags finished sixth in the
regular season with a record of 20-17-1-2.
Blenheim will move on to the Semi Final round.
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