The PeeWee Stars find themselves behind the eight ball in their series with Southpoint following a 5-2 loss at the Timken Centre on Thursday night. Even a rousing new pre-game player introduction couldn't change the fortunes of the seemingly snake-bitten Stars.
The Stars dominated from the opening face off and and hemmed Southpoint in their own end for much of the first period. The Stars offence generated several good scoring chances while denying Southpoint any meaningful offensive threats. It was no coincidence that the St. Thomas penalty box also remained empty for the entire first period.
Bryce Kernohan, playing the best hockey of his career, got the Stars on the board early in the second period. He managed to out-raced one Southpoint defender to the puck and laid a beautiful saucer pass over a second sprawling defenceman right on the stick of a streaking Matty Thomson, who slammed it home for a 1-0 Stars lead.
Unfortunately for the Stars, the lead was short lived. Two minutes later, with only second remaining on a costly Stars penalty, Southpoint capitalized on a goalmouth scramble to tie the game at 1-1. For reasons unknown to the writer, that single goal seemed to undermine all the Stars' confidence they had earned up to that point and changed the entire complexion of the game. Southpoint followed their early power play goal with three more tallies before the end of the period and took a 4-1 lead into the third.
The Stars hope for a miraculous comeback took a big hit as Southpoint scored their second power play goal of the game early in the third period.
Josh Reda drove to the net and converted a nice pass from Jesse Tottle with just under two minutes remaining to narrow the score to 5-2. A subsequent power play gave the Stars several opportunities to to jam another goal home and perhaps give their loyal fans something to cheer about, but it was simply was not meant to be on this night. As the buzzer sounded to end the game, Southpoint took home another victory along with their complimentary beverages.
Rogie Tottle probably deserved a better fate in the Stars net. He appeared to be in proper position on all the Southpoint goals, but the puck somehow seemed to be avoiding him, something which is usually not easy to do for a boy of his size. The Stars reduced their penalty total to three this game, but as is usually the case when a team is struggling, the two unnecessary penalties resulted in two Southpoint goals.
While the Stars played with spirit, determination and even a little composure on Thursday night, they have yet to be rewarded for their efforts. If there are hockey gods, that will change on Saturday afternoon.
Time to start planning the comeback.
Until then...keep your stick down, cover the short side, and don't get deked.