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 The
Lambton Minor Atom AAA Sting had a very strong
showing in their final tournament of the year as
they reached the semi-finals of a 13 team field at
the Vic Teal Tournament in St Catharines. Only a
shoot-out loss to the eventual champion St
Catharines Falcons in the semis prevented the team
from it's goal of reaching the championship game.
Lambton opened the tournament with a 7-0 victory
over the Niagara Purple Eagles. Spencer Vandenboom
and Josh McLean each scored twice in the win with
singles coming from Nolan DeGurse, Brock Barber and
Dylan Riddell. DeGurse had 4 assists while Barber,
Brandon Neelin, Jaycob White and Ryan Barwitzki each
had one helper. Liam McCarthy earned the shutout.
Next up was another team from New York State and
once again the result was a shutout. Lennex Jagoo
took the win in net as the Sting pounded the Amherst
Knights 10-0. Riddell scored three times, McLean and
Hunter Monkhouse each added a pair with single goals
from Barber, DeGurse and White.
Day 2 of the tournament saw the Sting pick up right
where they left off as they shut out the Hamburg
Hawks 3-0. This one was a much tougher victory than
their first two games and the contest was scoreless
until Greg Ross finally lit the lamp midway thru the
second period. That would be all the offense
McCarthy would require in earning his second
straight
shutout but DeGurse and Barber each added third
period tallys for insurance.
After beating up on the American teams the Sting
faced a much tougher challenge in their final
preliminary round game as the Hamilton Bulldogs
provided the opponent. The Sting had met the
Bulldogs in an earlier tournament and scraped out a
hard fought 2-2 draw. This one had the makings of
another tight affair when DeGurse got the Sting
strarted on the right path with a goal midway
through the first period after a nice setup from
Cole MacKinnon. However, Hamilton answered with a
goal of their own just 15 seconds later. Thanks to
some strong goaltending by Jagoo it would remain 1-1
until Brock Barber put the Sting back in front with
a goal late in the second period. The Bulldogs
picked up the pace in the third period and the Sting
battled hard but were unable to keep up as Hamilton
scored three times in the final 15 minutes to earn a
4-2 victory.
With a 3-1 record and 22 goals for compared to just
4 against in the preliminary round the Sting easily
advanced to the quarter-finals as the 5th seed.
Their opponent would be the Huron Perth Lakers. The
Sting came out flying and built a quick 2-0 lead as
Barber scored off a setup from Matt McIntyre while
Vandenboom added an unassisted marker. Perhaps the S ting
felt the game was well in hand but all of a sudden
they stopped skating and became very sloppy in their
own zone. The result was 3 quick goals for the
Lakers, each on a wide open chance from the slot. It
could have been 4 had not McCarthy come up with
possibly his biggest save of the tournament to rob a
Laker forward in close shortly before the period
came to an end.
The Sting settled down in the second but even with a
much better effort it was Huron Perth that scored
the only goal of the middle stanza to take a 4-2
lead. Faced with the possiblitity of just 15 minutes
left in their tournament the Sting bench came alive
in the third period and the team rallied for 5 goals
to win their quarterfinal match by a 7-4 count.
DeGurse would get three in the final period while
Barber, with his second of the game, and McLean,
with the game winner, would also score.
The Sting had little time to celebrate their
comeback win over the Lakers because three hours
later they were back on the ice against the host St
Catherines Falcons in a semi-final game. Lambton
would score first as Barber and McIntyre combined to
set up DeGurse for the game's opening goal 7 minutes
into the first. However, the Falcons would tie the
game with just over a minute remaining in the
opening period and would force the Sting to make a
goaltending change after St Catharines added 2 more
goals early in the second period. Once again the
Sting were faced with the task of trying to overcome
a 2 goal deficeit and once again they were equal to
the task. Defenseman Ryan Barwitzki would clos e
the gap to 3-2 with an unassisted goal late in the
second period. St Catharines had a couple of chances
to increase their lead early in the third but each
time goaltender McCarthy shut the door and gave his
team the chance to complete the comeback. Finally
after some furious end to end action the Sting
evened the game at 3-3 when DeGurse converted a
MacKinnon pass with just over 6 minutes remaining in
regulation. The pace continued to increase and both
teams had more chances to take the lead including a
great effort by Dylan Riddell to get in on a
breakaway in the final minute. However, the game
remained deadlocked as regulation came to an end and
despite scoring opportunites at both ends the
overtime period solved nothing. It would come down
to a shootout and unfortunately for the Sting they
would come up just short in the penalty shot
contest.
Despite falling in the semi-finals the Sting Minor
Atoms can be proud of how they battled back in each
of the playoff games and can also pat themselves on
the back for being the only team to score on St
Catherines. The Falcons would go on to win the
championship and the only 3 goals they allowed in
the tournament were the 3 that Lambton scored in the
semi-final game.
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