The Pee Wee LL team was honoured to be a part of the 68th Annual Young Canada Week tournament this past weekend in Goderich.
The Pee Wee's were part of a 9 team round robin tournament. The games were awarded points for winning the period and the game.
Our first game was Friday morning at 10:10 am vs. South Bruce Blades. Our hopes were high for this game as we have beaten South Bruce before. The first period saw
Brett Falk getting a beauty goal unassisted just 1:45 into the game. The first period ended at 1-0 for us.
The second period saw South Bruce tie it up at 1.
Sheldon Leis on a pass from
Bradley Jantzi, gave us the lead, 2-1. The third period saw us up 2-1. But the puck was back and forth and into the third, South Bruce tied it once again.
Sheldon Leis worked with Phil
Beuerman and Noah
Poole to get his second of the game to make it 3-2. But then 20 seconds later, South Bruce tied it up again 3-3. And that's where the game would end as no overtime was played.
It was a good start for our squad.
Reid Baillie was amazing in net, once again.
The second game was at 5:10 vs.
Lucknow. We had a great game against
Lucknow on March
12th in playoffs so knew it would be a tough game.
Lucknow got on the board first with 1:02 left in the first period. They would get their second of the game in the by the end of the first period. The second period was still a 2-0 lead for
Lucknow.
Into the third we go and the team had to rally to come from behind. 3 minutes in
Brett Falk on a pass from
Seth Morgan found the back of the net for our first goal. We were on the edge of our seats for the remaining 12 minutes.
Falk came
thru for us again with 1:27 left to tie it up! Final score 2-2. All the team put forth a great effort and
Reid Bailie was stellar in between the pipes.
Back to
Goderich we go for a 2:
50pm game on Saturday vs.
Goderich. We had beaten
Goderich 3 times
thru the year so we were confident going in for a win. A win was a must if we wanted to carry on into Sunday. After our first two games we sat with 5 points total.
The game from the drop of the puck was a good one! Other than having to play a lot of the game with penalties being serviced (on both sides) it was an amazing game for our team.
Bradley Jantzi got us on the board early in the first unassisted. We would hold the lead into the second period.
Lachlan Manning
Faber stepped up to the challenge and scored a goal on an assist from
Jantzi. 5 minutes later,
Jamie Donnelley shot to the net from the blue line and the puck found it's way in! Assisted by
Seth Morgan. This put us up 3-0 going in to the third. Our adrenaline was running high!
We couldn't end it with a shutout for
Baillie as a
Goderich defenseman had a wrist shot that whizzed past
Reid. Final Score was 3-1. The parents were thrilled that the kids ended the round robin play with a win and everyone had a great game!
We were forced to wait until other games were played on Saturday to see if we made it
thru to Sunday's
semis. We ended up with 9 points in the round robin. Word came
thru at
9pm on Saturday that we finished in
4th place! How amazing! But what that meant was coming back up on Sunday morning for a
9am game vs. the
1st place team, Shallow Lake.
The coaching staff were very pleased and proud of the team for making it to Sunday's play. Getting to the semi final game was an accomplishment in it's own. Shallow Lake finished the tournament with 13 points.
From the drop of the puck, our team was on a mission. 20 seconds into the game,
Lachlan Manning
Faber had a bouncing puck go by the goalie for our first goal, unassisted! Shallow Lake was caught off guard by that one. We would go on to get 2 more goals in the first, one from
Sheldon Leis assisted by
Falk and another from Noah
Poole, assisted by
Falk and Leis.
In the second, Shallow Lake's best player scored a goal. Into the third period we go with a slim 3-1 lead. #11 for Shallow Lake scored his second of the game to bring them to within 1 of us. With minutes winding down, Shallow Lake pulled their goalie.
Bradley Jantzi pushed
thru the defense and scored our
4th goal. Final score 4-2! How amazing was that feeling for all the kids to play the top seeded team and win!
Reid Baillie was phenomenal in net.
This win took us into the finals vs. Seaforth at 3:20pm. Anything after this game was a bonus for the team as we never thought we could beat the
1st place team.
Seaforth was a tough opponent in regular season as well. By the third period,
Seaforth would come away with 5 goals on the board. But our kids wouldn't give up.
Sheldon Leis
fed the puck to Noah
Poole for our first of the game, 1 minute into the third. Our spirits rose a bit as we got on the board. With 1:25 left,
Dawson Reimer shot to the net and
Sheldon Leis was there for the rebound. Final score 5-2 for
Seaforth. Our team received a trophy and a banner to acknowledge that we were Runners Up.
Reid Baillie earned player of the game for 4 of 5 games over the weekend and this was totally deserved for him.
All of the parents and coaching staff are so very proud of our team. Even though our playoff run didn't fair out so well, to end the season with such an amazing result in a tournament makes up for it all. Every player worked hard and put their best effort forward all weekend. We couldn't be more proud of the Pee Wee LL team!