Agius and Crosby - Heros of the Day
Just hours before the overtime heroics of Sidney Crosby gave Canada the cherished men's hockey gold medal, the goaltending heroics of Brennan Agius gave the PeeWee Stars an early 1-0 lead in their semi-final series against the Sarnia Sting. Brennan made several remarkable saves, including a very flashy glove save that would have made Roberto Luongo smile, to help the Stars skate to a 3-1 victory on Sunday afternoon in Sarnia.
After a four week layoff in between games, the Stars looked surprisingly sharp in the first period. With just under four minutes to play in the first stanza, Jesse Tottle made a nice play from the right corner to feed Andrew Baxter in front of the Sarnia net. L'il Baxter certainly made no mistake, embarrassing Sting goalie Matt Szabo with a cheeky little deke, before sliding the puck by him to give the Stars a 1-0 lead. Less than a minute later, Derek Smith pounced on a rebound, after some good work by Trent Turley and Isaac Robinson, to double the Stars lead to 2-0.
Early in the second period, Isaac Robinson picked up another rebound from a T.J. Turley shot and scored a power play marker to give the Stars a commanding 3-0 lead.
The Stars did their best to allow the Sting an opportunity to get back into the game, as they took seven minor penalties after taking a 3-0 lead. Even Alex Sanders... that's right our Alex Sanders... got his number on the naughty list. Not being familiar with the process after being called for a penalty, teammate Josh Reda attempted to explain to Alex the process of going to the penalty box and feeling shame for two minutes or less.
A scoreless third period was highlighted by more Brennan Agius netminding wizardry, as well as an excellent 5 on 3 penalty kill with just over six minutes remaining in the game, led by T. J. Turley and Josh Reda, on one of those rare occasions during this game when Josh was available for penalty killing duty.
T. J. Turley owned the face-off circle, which gave the Stars several good scoring chances. Derek Smith seemed pleased to be reunited with his old linemates as he played a very "Wendel Clark-like" game, dishing out several bone-jarring hits and scoring a goal. Zach Smith clearly wanted to impress his grandmother with his robust play and a speedy end-to-end rush.
The Stars have stolen home ice advantage and look to take a stranglehold on the series next Saturday afternoon in the friendly confines of the Timkin Centre. Until then...keep your stick down, cover the short side, and don't get deked.
