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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 40 32 32 27 25 24 21 21 20 16 4,