HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1997-01-08, Page 11The Exeter Midgets won the Regional Silver Stick -Tournament in Petrolia on Thursday. From
back row left, trainer Brent McDonald,' coach Dave Dalrymple, Jason Grenier, Chad Dalrym-
ple, Bryan Hayman, Cam Dougall, Greg Geoffrey, Luke Sims, Geoff Maver. Klan McDougall,
coach Tim Moore Brian Parsons and manager Bill Brock. Front row, Tyler Bourne, Jeff Camp-
bell, Matt Szabo, BJ Theophllopolous, )ave Farquhar, Ryan Freiter, Scott Rasenberg and Jon
Miners. -
NEgOki4L .
MIER
r^aeYerttrr
BANTAM
CHANPlP i
1996
The Exeter Bantams won the Regional Silver Stick Tournament in Watford on Sunday. They
• are pictured here in a file photo taken last November Ryan Sullivan, John Pryde, Jason Greni-
er, Jared tioume, Jeff Campbell, Tanner Ingram, Scott Keys; Steve Farquhar, Kian MacDou-
gall, Tim Maver, Rob DeVries, Mike Seip, Angfgw Maver, Chad Monteith, Ryan Ralph. and
Steve 1'aseht rg with coaching and Suppo)'t Staff ferry Bourne, Bob Campbell, Allan Keys
Times -Advocate, January 8, 1997
1
Page 11
This Week iti Sports...
• Ringette teams win gold - page '12
• Local players make Jr. 'B' All-Star games - page 12
Exeter Bantams and Midgets
win Silver Stick Tournament
EXETER .- The Exeter Minor
hockey Association boasted two
Silver Stick Championship teams
last week as the Midgets and Ban-
tam rep teams won their regional
tournaments to earn a berth in Inter-
national play. Both teams have
been on fire since winning the Bill
Batten Memorial Tournament in
November and are currently prepar-
ing to advance to their North Amer-
ican tournaments. The Bantams
will compete in Port Huron, Michi-
gan from Jan. 9-13 and the Midgets
see action the following weekend
in Sarnia from Jan. 17 -19.
The Exeter Bantams.
The Exeter Legionnaires defeated
Mitchell Bantams 2-1 in overtime
on Sunday night in Watford to win
the Regional Silver. Stick. Bantam
'B' championship.
Less than two minutes into the
overtime period, -Tanner Ingram.
made a sliding block of a shot at
the Exeter hlueline. Jeff Campbell
picked up the loose puck, skated
around the 'lone -Mitchell defender
and pulled the Mitchell goaltender
out of position to score giving Exet-
er the victory.
Campbell scored the other Exeter
goal midway through the third peri-
od only to sec Mitch. .1 tic the .yore
with less "than three minutes re-
maining. The Mitchell goaltender
was outstanding during this excit=
ing, hard-fought game. Ryan Sulli-
van was solid in net for Exeter and
Campbell won the tournament
MVP award.
In the opening game of the tour-
nament on January 2, Exeter defeat-
ed Wallacehurg 8-2 with Scott
Keys scoring three times. Rob
DeVries added two goals with sin-
gles going to Chad Monteith, Jason
Crcoter and Campbell.
On Saturday, ' January 4,Exeter
arid Rick Ingram. -
defeated Dorchester 5-3 to earn a
birth in the championship game.
Campbell again led the team scor-
ing three times. Singles were added
by Andrew Maver and Keys.
Coach Terry Bourne said he cred-
its the team's success to it's ability
to execute defensively.
"Good team defence was the dif-
ference," said Bourne who has em-
phasized defence all season., So far
his strategy has worked as the Exet-
er Bantams have won three tourna-
ments, including their own Rill Bat-
ten Memorial tournament, and have
a firm hold on first place in the
Shamrock League North division.
Bourne feels optimistic about Ex-
eter's chances of winning the North
American Silver Stick Tournament
and if his team continues to play
the way they do, this year's bantam
team may be the first to bring back
an International title to Exeter.
"This is a once in a life -time op-
portunity for a lot of the kids and
we're optimistic we have a shot at
it," said Bourne.
Exeter now advances to the Inter-
national Silver Stick North Ameri-
can Bantam Finals January 9-12 in
Port Huron, Michigan. The Legion-
naires' first game is Thursday, Jan-
uary 9 at 8:45 p.m. against an
American Bantam team from Ala-
bama.
The Exeter Midgets
The midgets won the "B" title af-
ter beating Dresden 6-3 in the final
game of the Petrolia Silver Stick
Tournament on Thursday. Exeter
beat Dresden prior to the final 9-3
and claimed a win over Six Nations
5-2, Hagersville 4-1, and Tilbury 3-
1 sweeping the tournament with
five straight wins.
• However, coach Dave Dalrymple
said their undefeated run at the Re-
gional Silver Stick was not as easy
Exeter Hawks move into first place
EXETER - The Exeter Hawks travelled to Langton on
Sunday to take on the second last team in the league and
walked away with a 9-5 win.
Eight different players found the hack of the net for the
Hawks and their powerplay was hot all night as they scored
four goals on seven powerplays.
Chad Gilfillan, Chris McDonald and Craig Corriveau
scored in the first period, Sean McCann and Nathan Burns
scored in the second and Corriveau added his second of the
night in the third followed by Geoff Maver, Greg Goodwin
and Joey McDonald.
McCann capped a four point night when he added three
assists to his goal and Corriveau also recorded four points
by adding a pair of assists to his two goals.
The lopsided win over Langton, which has only won six
games all season, came as no surprise, but Exeter's 5-2 win
over the Mount Brydges Bulldogs on Friday night was.
Mount Brydges, playing in the Thomas division has a 22-
4-0 win/loss/tie record and were leading the league stand-
ings until they met their defeat in Exeter. After Friday, the
Hawks slipped into first place. one point ahead of Mount
Brydges.
Sean McCann, led the Hawks with two goals scoring
midway through the first, period after taking a pass from
Darcy Cox and Gilfillan. He scored his- second, an un-
assisted shorthanded goal, while his team was fighting off a
powerplay early in the second.
Defenceman Ben McCann pumped one in on a pow-
erplay and Nathan Burns and Jeff Glavin rounded out the
scoring' in the second with Dan Taylor, Scan McCann,
Chris McDonald, Darcy Cox and Gilfillan picking up as-
sists.
Despite recording the same number of shots
on net Langton could only manage two goals
as Exeter's defence kept the Thunderbirds
off balance. Goalie Darren Kints closed the
door with an outstanding performance be-
tween the pipes making some key saves in
the first.
The Hawks didn't score in the third period,
but dominated Langton in their own end mak-
ing it Intik like Exeter was on a powerplay while
both sides were at even strength.
Although Exeter was missing big guns Greg Goodwin,
Chris Kennedy and Ryan Chamney head coach Dave Rev-
ington was happy with his team's performance.
"i thought they (Langton) outskated us in the first period,
but after that we -outplayed them," he said crediting Kints
for a strong game between the pipes. "Offensively we fin-
ished our own opportunities better than they did." -
The Hawks are now 22-3-1 and will see action on Friday
night when they host the Wellesley Applejacks at the South
Huron Recreation Centre. This is the first
time Exeter has met Wellesley since they
defeated them in the league championship
last year.
Wellesley forced the Hawks to go the
distance but lost the seventh and final
game of the series by one goal. .
Assistant coacti Jeff Dalrymple said
10011some of the returning playersmay view the
upcoming contest as a grudge match, however, he
thinks it will be a good test to see how they do against
the first place team in the. Yeck Conference.
"Sure they (Wellesley) will want to beat us...every team
that comes in here wants to beat us," said Dalrymple.
A sudden coaching shake-up leaves the Lucan
Irish Jr "D" hockey team with one less coach
The hockey club's executive say head coach George Pratt resigned, Pratt says he was fired
By Chris Skalkos
T -A Reporter
LUCAN - It's a' case of he
said...they said, but in the end the
result is the same, George Pratt no
longer coaches the Lucan Irish 6
Junior "D" hockey team.
Anne Hardy, president of the Lu -
can Irish executive read a press re-
lease to the T -A over the phone Fri-
day announcing Assistant Coaches
Jason Bukala and Bill Bourne re-
placed Head Coach George Pratt
and will share the duties behind the
bench for the rest of the season.
Hardy said the change followed
Pratt's resignation, however, Pratt
said he didn't resign.
"No, I was fired," said Pratt add-
ing his termination came without
warning. "1 had no idea this was go-
ing to happen." •
Hardy told the T -A Pratt resigned
at a meeting with the Lucan Irish
Executive Committee last Monday
and it was officially recorded in the
minutes.
Pratt said he was asked to meet
with the executive committee be-
fore a team practice last week
where members read a prepared
statement noting the team is not
heading in the right direction and
the committee wanted to make
some changes among the coaching
staff. As of last week, the Lucan
Irish are 12-12-2 and have slipped
from second to fifth place in the
Junior Development Mprenz divi-
sion standings. -
"The team is struggling because
we're missing some key guys and a
lot of the games we lost were
close," said Pratt adding the com-
mittee blamed him for the team's
record. "Once everybody gets back
and healthy I'm confident the rest
of the season would have gone
well, but 1 guess 1 won't be a part
of that." He added there are only
four points separating the team
from second place.
However, Hardy said the team
was only missing two key players,
Captain George Stephens and top
point scorer Mike Robb. She added
the team has called up midget -age
players including Chad Greenlee,
Jeremy Cornish, Pat Conlin and
Rob Silver who have filled the void
successfully. -
"We're thrilled with how well
they have done and i credit that to
the excellent working rapport we
have with the Lucan Minor Hockey
organizatidni" said Hardy.
She said the team was on a se-
rious downswing and the com-
mittee had to intervene quickly to
save the season.
"The team has done notating but
lose. We have gone from second
place to fifth place without a lot of
injuries and the executive felt we
needed to take action," she said.
(According to up -dated league
statistics, as of Jan. 5 Lucan is in
fourth place in the Morenz division
with a 13-12-2 record with a total
of 29 points. They are six points
away from Seaforth, the second
place team and two points ahead of
North Middlesex, which is in fifth
place. Lucan is the only team that
has defeated the league -leading Ex-
eter Hawks twice this season.)
Pratt, who assumed coaching du-
ties at the start of the season, said
he felt he was cheated from prov-
ing he could have turned the team
around if given the opportunity.
"1 didn't get a chance to finish
the whole year, i wish they would
have kept me for the rest of the sea-
son, we still had 15.games left," he
said.
However, Hardy said the last
time they delayed the dismissal of a
coach things didn't improve.
"in the past we have given people
two years and got nowhere. We
feel very badly to have this situa-
tion crop up at this time of the sea-
son, but we ca4't afford to take an-
other bad year," she said insisting
Pratt resigned.
Pratt admits the executives did
give him the option to resign but
emphasized he, did not give them
his resignation.
"1 didn't want it to look like i
was quitting on the players, which i
• didn't," he said adding the offer to
resign was ultimately a veiled ter-
mination. "I feel the truth of the
matter is they hit the panic button
and jumped the gun."
as the scores depict.
Dresden fought hard in the final
mounting a small come -back late in
the game to come within two goals,-
and
oals;and the third game against 1 ilbury
remained close. -until Exeter put it
away with an empty net goal with
only seconds left on the clock.
Even the lopsided 9-3 win Dresden
in the semi- final round was a neck -
to -neck battle until Exeter exploded
for five goals in the third period.
Dave Farquhar, Greg Geoffrey
and Jeff Campbell were named
tournament MVP's.
Dalrymple credits the victory to
an entire team effort.
"They were confident they could
win and they played like it," he said
adding they made few mental mis-
takes. "We were coming off hard
right off the start in every game and
everybody contributed.
Co -coach Tim Moore was at a
loss for words but managed w say
said it was the hest two-way hock-
ey he.has coached.
Their performance at the regional
competition will advance Exeter to
the International Silver Stick North
American Midget tournament in
Sarnia from Jan. 17-19. Dalrymple
said he likes the timing of the tour-
nament because they only have
four regular league games left
when they return and will take the
experience they gain in Sarnia into
the playoffs. ' .
"This is really going to pump us
up for the OMHA playoffs," he
said.
Although the competition will be
tough, Dalrymple said he isn't go-
ing to rule out the possibility the
Exeter midgets will win the prestig-
ious tournament.
"I figure_ we will respect a lot of
the teams there, but I also think
'we'll be noticed," he said.
Exeter curlers
compete in
zone playoffs
HANOVER - Two Exeter teams
competed at the Ontario Curling
Zone 15 Playoffs in Hanover on
Friday Jan. 3-5.
The Exeter Bantam (under 16)
mixed team comprised of skip Jay -
den Russell, vice Beth Ann Hern,
second, Dave Shapton and lead
Mary Lou Hern won two games
and lost two. The Exeter Junior (19
and over) mixed team of ski1S,
Steve Hern, vice, Jan Mercer, sec-
ond, Jeff DeBlock, lead, Laura
Miller and spare Jerry Geurts also
won and lost a pair of games.
Coaches Harry Jacobi and Les
Hills said both teams were very
competitive but their inability to
consistently make takeout shots
was their main weakness, however,
they are optimistic about next
year's prospects as seven out of
nine players arc returning.
in other curling news, the Sun-
day Junior Curling program, head-
ed by level one coach Susan Brint-
nell and Les Hills is gaining
popularity as young people of all
ages arc trying the sport.
The South Huron District High
School curling teams, coached by
Janice Walker and Harry Jacobi
are practicing Monday -Friday in
preparation for the Huron -Perth
playdowns.
Exeter carpet
bowling
3 game winners
June Hodgon
John Batten
2 game winners
Ray Hodgson
Marg Deichert
Marshall Dearing
Howard Johns
Helen Patterson
John Deweerd
Bob Patterson
Barry Kentner
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