The St. Thomas Bantam AE Stars defeated the Petrolia Oilers to take the series in three games and become the Shamrock League Pool “C” CHAMPIONS.
The Stars beat Petrolia 6-2 at home in game three to wrap up the series as they had already won games one, with a score of 5-2 in Petrolia, and two with a score of 4-0 here is St. Thomas.
Petrolia started game 3 strong scoring first in minute 4 of the first period. The locals tied the game 2 minutes later courtesy of #18 Brian Vanbelois but Petrolia quickly responded to the St. Thomas equalizer to go ahead in the scoreboard once more. The Stars managed to rescue the first period by scoring with 3 minutes to go by the hands of #6 Christian Kootenayoo and go to the first intermission tied 2 goals a piece.
The second and third period were all St. Thomas as Petrolia could not keep up the pace suffering from their poor turn out since they counted with 5 starters and only 2 subs on the bench. The Stars took good benefit of this as they scored 4 uncontested goals in the last two episodes; 2 in the second period scored by #8 Mark Lewis and #18 Brian Vanbelois; and 2 more in the third period buried by #5 Andrew Wood and #9 Cody Howard.
The three stars of the game were #18 Brian Vanbelois with 2 goals and 1 assist; #5 Andrew Wood with 1 goal and 2 assists; and #35 Dylan Hodgson in net as he earns the victory for the championship.
This win marks the perfect ending for a great season of the St. Thomas Junior Stars Bantam AE team.
Congratulations Bantam AE Stars CHAMPIONS!!
Season Statistics
The season started rough for the team as we went 22 games without a win. The team was only able to rescue two ties; the first in an exhibition game against Lambton Shores with a score of 3-3, and the second in the St. Thomas tournament against Belleville with final score of 4-4. Our team struggled to put shots on net as we were out-shot by a margin of 1 shot for every 2 shots of the rivals. This translated into a very low scoring performance with only 21 goals “for” versus 94 “against” for a margin of 1 St. Thomas goal for every 5 of the opposition.
Everything improved considerably in the second half of the season as the team started to pick up their game. We ended the second half with a 500 average with 9 wins and 2 ties versus 11 loses and the team was able to reverse the shutouts, as they pulled off a couple of their own. The team finished the season strong in the shooting and scoring categories and was able to match every shot and score of the opposition.
At the individual level is worth to note that only three players were able to dress for every single game of the season. They are #9 Cody Howard, #14 Eric Pineda and #1 Marco Valdez.
In the scoring category, the first star of the season goes to #9 Cody Howard who consistently put pucks on net for 20 goals, 7 assists and a total of 27 points. The second point scorer was #5 Andrew Wood with a total of 19 points (8 goals and 11 assists) followed very closely by #8 Mark Lewis with 18 points who was actually second in goal scoring with 11.
In net, #35 Dylan Hodgson was able to finish the season strong with two straight wins including the championship winner. His team equal, goalie #1 Marco Valdez had a very strong second half of the season with 6 wins, 2 ties and only 3 losses completing a couple of shutouts.
Congratulations and thanks for a great season to the coaching staff lead by head coach Steve Mikulinac, who is seeing the fruit from the development of this group of kids for the last 6 years, winning the first series of the OMHA playdowns and conquering the Shamrock League Pool “C” championship. Thanks also to assistant coaches Mike Sunderland and Doug Vannoord, support trainers during the season Scott Howard and Clay Trumble and our very finest team manager Teresa Mikulinac.
Thank you boys for an unforgettable season!!
Bantam AE Stars CHAMPIONS!!