Weekend Ends With A Loss In The Semi-Finals, News, Midget AE ('95-'97), U16-U18 Travel, 2012-2013 (St. Thomas Minor Hockey)

This Team is part of the 2012-2013 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Dec 03, 2012 | hcosgrove | 1325 views
Weekend Ends With A Loss In The Semi-Finals
The St Thomas Midget AE Jr. Stars took part in this past weekend’s SSE Wild tournament in London and had some of their recent hard work and effort rewarded.  The Midget AE’s had been on a roll of late playing well in most of their games but not getting the “W” at the end.  This weekend, all of that changed.

The Midget AE’s started with an early Friday morning tilt against the host London Bandits Black team on the expansive Western Fair – London City Chrysler rink. For such an early game, the pace was fairly quick and Jr. Stars struck early, just a 1:10 in with a goal by Thomas Cosgrove and assist from Matt Iachetta.  Apparently the Bandits haven’t learned the “don’t talk back to the ref” rule, as some undisciplined actions lead to a six minute penalty, 10 minute misconduct leaving the host team short-handed for the better part of the first period.  Unfortunately, the Jr. Stars controlled the play but could not find the back of the net ending the period with our boys in the lead 1-0.

 

As soon as the second period started, the Jr. Stars pounced twice, netting goals by Matt Roberts from Andrew Wood just 33 seconds in and Cody Howard scoring from Thomas Cosgrove only 57 seconds after that.  The Jr. Stars had a commanding 3-0 with 8:33 remaining in the second period.  Things remained fairly even through the second including on the penalty side where both teams were taking liberties.

 

The third period was back and forth as well, but then the Bandits capitalized while on the power play with 10:23 remaining in the game.  Our normal third period let down was beginning to kick in and our boys seemed to lose the ability to move their feet.  The Bandits put on a late push despite being shorthanded once again and pulled their goalie for the extra attacker.  A seeing eye shot from the point found the back of the net to make the score 3-2, but it was too little, too late.  Brennan Agius was his usual solid self in posting the victory.

On a side note, we lost Thomas Cosgrove to a properly diagnosed hairline fracture of the clavicle bone and will be out for the next 6 weeks.  On another side note, Derek Smith was misdiagnosed and was expected to return to action possibly Saturday night.

 

In game two, the Midget AE’s faced their familiar opponent in the Port Stanley Sailors.  In our meetings thus far, Port Stanley held the advantage and our players knew our opposition well, led by Matt Martyn and several other strong members of the Sailors team.  This game had all of the same emotion, speed, hard checking and tenacity of our other meetings and it seemed as though neither team was going to budge an inch.  The two teams played to a scoreless first period with our goaltender Josh Nesbitt holding the fort.

 

The second was played much the same way and neither team gave up very much.  The Midget AE defense was effective at keeping the Sailors to the outside for most of the game and the forwards played our defensive system almost flawlessly as well.  Then late in the second period, Aiden Bilyea chased down a loose puck in the Sailors corner and fed a pass to Matt Roberts in the high slot.  Matt made no mistake and buried the puck over the glove of goaltender Dylan Coventry.  That goal seemed to spark the team and put Port Stanley back on their heels.

 

The third period was played with even more intensity than the first two and the other team from Elgin County was doing their best to even up the game.  This is when “Dozer” really began to shut the door and lead his team.  The Midget AE’s took an unfortunately penalty with good intentions with 3:42 remaining in the game and the team rallied with an amazing effort.  Cody Howard put the game away on an assist from Captain Andrew Wood with only two and a half minutes to play while our boys were shorthanded.  The final score was 2-0.

 

With the win, the Midget AE’s were guaranteed of a birth in the Semi-Finals, a feat which seemed almost impossible earlier this year as the losing streak began to add up.  The only thing separating first place in the tournament division was a game against the Dorchester Dragons who we had faced and lost 5-2, just one week earlier.

 

Unlike the other games, this started off with somewhat of a feeling out process as each team appeared to be waiting for something ugly to materialize.  It did not and in fact, there were only 5 minor penalties called the whole game combined for the two teams.  After a scoreless first period, the Dragons struck first blood two and a half minutes into the second on a goal that seems to be redirected on the way past Brennan Agius.  Our Midget AE’s answered back almost 1:30 later when Cody Howard continued his scoring ways on an assist from Derek Smith who returned to game action.  The Dragons answered that goal with a screen shot almost 1 minute later to give them a 2-1 advantage to end the second.

 

The third period was another back and forth affair as our Midget AE’s continued to battle and push.  Just over 3 minutes into the third period Matt Roberts scored on another feed from Aiden Bilyea to tie the game at 2-2.  With just under 7 minutes remaining the Dragons took the lead again and our boys were pushed to the brink.  Several rushes down into the Dorchester zone came up empty and Brennan was tested several times as well.  As the clock ticked down, Brennan was pulled for the extra attacker as Pierce Lawrence made a beautiful pass to Cody Howard who made no mistake, with only 35 seconds remaining.  It seemed as though we had given ourselves first place in the Division against the Dragons.  Unfortunately, there was still 35 seconds left and the Dragons ripped out our heart by scoring on a 2-on-0 breakaway with 5 seconds left in the game.  Our boys were deflated after a strong effort to keep themselves in the game against a top 5 team in our league.

 

The loss put us in second place, forcing us to play the first place team (Brampton Spitfires) in the Division crossover game.  The Dorchester Dragons would play and lose in the 7th overtime period to the second place London Nationals in the other semi-final.

 

Right from the drop of the puck against the Brampton Spitfires our Midget AE’s were back on their heels.  The Spitfires were running like a well-oiled machine against our boys and if not for the heroics of Josh Nesbitt, this game would have been out of reach early on.  To make matters worse, some lucky bounces went against us such as pucks jumping off sticks and blue lines tripping up players on odd man rushes.  Then, just over half way into the second period Brampton struck early into a power play and you could see the shoulders start to drop a little.  Brampton continued to pressure us in our own zone and keep us pinned in.  The Spitfires struck again just over a minute into the third period and then put the final nail in the coffin with a shorthanded effort with 4:26 remaining in the game.  The final score was 3-0 Brampton and deservedly so.  They were the better team on that morning.

 

As it turns out, the Brampton Spitfires went on to defeat London Nationals 3-2 in the final and take the Gold.  Our Midget AE’s have come a long way in the past 2 weeks and it bodes well for balance of our season.  The lessons learned over these past couple of games along with the confidence of winning and almost beating some of the teams we see on a regular basis will hopefully push us onto some better results going forward.