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The Citizen, 2009-02-26, Page 8SportsPAGE 8. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009.The Alliance Major PeeWees semi-finals started with a bang this past weekend. The Huron Perth Major PeeWees AAA were matched up against the London Jr. Knights once again. A year ago these two teams battled in the finals and treated fans to some great hockey. This year’s opening games would not disappoint local hockey fans. The two teams gathered at the Medway arena in London on Saturday, Feb. 21. D Two minutes into the game the Knights went on the powerplay. Starting goalie Cole Thomas made a fine pad save and his team mates did the rest as they killed off the penalty. Late in the period Thomas again made a good save to keep the game scoreless. The second period started with the Lakers back on their heels for a couple of minutes. They weathered the mini storm when Derek Elliott and Nathan Templeman teamed up to get the puck to Roland McKeown who faked the goalie completely out of position and tucked a back hander into the net giving the Lakers a 1-0 lead. At the midway point of the period defenseman Carter Stewart made a fine defensive play on a two- on-one allowing Thomas to take the shooter all the way. The Knights continued to press the play. Some fine back checking by the Lakers continued to frustrate the high flying Knights. With 53 seconds remaining in the period McKenzie Carter and Gregory Swan combined to set up Andrew Bogdon to up the Lakers lead to 2-0. Early in the third period the Knights still on a powerplay finally solved Thomas shoving the puck into the net through a multi-player scrum to close the gap to 2-1. The Lakers clicked for the insurance goal with five minutes to play. Ryan Stulp-Jacobson and Garret James moved the puck back and forth until James blasted a shot on net. McKeown jumped all over the rebound put the puck to the back of the net giving the Lakers a 3-1. With 1:19 remaining to play the Knights pulled their goalie for the extra attacker and stormed the Lakers’ end zone. They scored with 37 seconds to play. As the buzzer sounded the Lakers celebrated a well deserved 3 – 2 team victory. Game two was on Sunday, Feb. 22 at Goderich MRC. The Knights took the opening faceoff directly at the Lakers’ net getting one by goalie Eric Ryan to take a 1-0 lead. One minute later the Knights were on the attack again and upped their lead to 2-0. Thomas entered the game and had to be sharp right away as he faced and stopped a breakaway. The Lakers started to force the play and had a few good scoring opportunities, but with one minute to play in the period London scored to make the score 3-0. Two minutes into the second period the Lakers power play clicked. Keigan Goetz forced the play down low and found Bayley Boyes with a good pass. Boyes made no mistake to make the score 3-1. This goal gave the Lakers and their fans some life. On the next shift McKeown found Templeman with an exceptional pass but the Knights goalie was equal to the shot. Eight minutes into the period Thomas stared down and stopped a Knights break away. The Lakers were building their momentum as the period went on but could not get any closer than 3-1 heading to the third period. The third period started with both teams playing 4 on 4. The Lakers penalty expired and the team had a short but profitable powerplay. James kept the puck in the Knights zone pushing it to Goetz who found Templeman going hard to the net. Templeman circled in a spinning fashion leaving the defender looking the wrong way then tucked a shot into the net making the score 3-2. Several minutes later Thomas made a fine blocker save to keep the game close. With two minutes remaining McKeown made a smart play following the play up the left wall to surprise the Knights’ defender. He out muscled the defender and got the puck to Templeman who went directly to the net firing a shot off the corner bar into the net tying the score at 3. The sudden death overtime was scheduled to go five minutes. Both teams came out flying. The Lakers had a couple of opportunities with James flipping a back hander towards the net and the Knights’ goalie alertly gloved the screen shot. Two minutes into the period a Knight forward skated hard into the Lakers’ zone and wired a shot 18 inches above the ice on the glove side to give the Knights a 4-3 overtime victory. Feb 28 the team is in London at 5:30 p.m. and March 1 in Goderich at MRC at 2:30 p.m. The Blyth PeeWee Rep Dogs started game three of their OMHA quarter-finals in a win-or-go-home situation as Norwich was up two games in the best-of-five series. The first period was a back-and- forth game with a lot of penalties. The Dogs came out strong in the second with Ryan Nesbitt scoring on a pass from Spencer Stevenson. Norwich came back strong and put one by Blyth’s netminder. In the dying minutes of the third the Dogs were shorthanded and Norwich made them pay as they got their second goal of the game putting them up by one. Blyth pulled the goalie to add the sixth attacker but was unable to capitalize. The Dogs lost sending Norwich on to the OMHA semi-finals. Lakers battle London’s Knights Improving their record to 2-0 in the second game of the provincial playdowns against Stratford Aces, the Saugeen Maitland Lightning Midget AAs won 2-1. Lightning goals were scored by Tammy Freiburger, Wingham and Dru Austin, Goderich. The provincial series is the best of five, with the third game scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 24 in their home rink at Howick Arena at 7. Also, in the Lower Lakes Female Hockey League playdowns this weekend, the Lightning ran into trouble against the St. Thomas Panthers. On Sunday afternoon they lost their final game 3-1, with Ona Mezenberg, Owen Sound having the lone goal for the Lightning. Saturday, the Lightning won their game 4-2 at home with the Lightning goals coming from Freiburger, Austin, Mezenberg and Victoria Bertrand, Port Elgin. The loss on Sunday to St. Thomas puts them out of the LLFHL playdowns. The Blyth-Brussels PeeWee girls finished the first round of the OWHA playdowns with a perfect record of three wins and zero losses. The victories came against Lucknow, Seaforth and Goderich. The team moved to the next round along with Goderich as well as the top two teams from Perth County, Milverton and Stratford. They opened the second round with a game against Milverton. The Girls gave up a goal 17 seconds into the game on a deflected shot. That was an indication of how the game would go and the team came up short losing by a 2-1 score. Lexi Smith scored the lone goal with the assist going to Kaitlyn Michie. Next up was another tilt with Goderich on a stormy Thursday night. After beating the Sailorettes the previous week, the coaching staff knew that Goderich would come out strong. They did just that building a 3-0 lead at the mid-way mark of the first period. The team came back strong and had a very good second period, but managed only one goal. Smith got the tally with assists going to Michie again as well as Delayna Smith. The visitors proved too strong in the third and Goderich took the game by a 5-1 score. The final round two game was against Stratford, and a big game was a must to have any chance at advancing. The girls started very strongly with a goal 28 seconds into the game by Jordyn Sholdice with Lexi Smith getting the assist. Taylor Higgins added one in the second with the assist going to Sholdice. Stratford got on the board at the halfway mark of the third period. That seemed to spark the Blyth- Brussels team and Ashley Higgins replied with a goal 14 seconds later with Delayna Smith getting the assist. The team added two more goals by Sholdice and Mackenzie Nesbitt. Assists went to Ashley Higgins, Nesbitt and Smith. The final score was 5-1. The team finished the second round with a record of one win and two losses and now must watch the results from the other team to see if they advance to the third round. Skating it old style Brussels Oldtimer Dave Stephenson demonstrates stick handling ability as his team took on Cockwell’s Universal Oldtimers from Listowel in a game in Brussels on Saturday night. It was a 4-2 loss for the locals. (Vicky Bremner photo) PeeWee girls finish round 2 The Brussels Tykes were in Palmerston on Saturday, Feb. 14 and Blyth the next day. The team managed to light up the scoreboard with 18 goals and only seven against. Joe Jacklin and Nic McArter took turns in net. Jacob Roth had two goals and seven assists. Myles Johnston netted five goals and two assists. Darian Fritz scored two goals and picked up three assists. Teddy Jacklin got two goals and earned an assist. Dana Dolmage had two goals and three assists, Devin Bridge scored two goals and got two assists. John Nesbitt had two assists. Ben Jacklin and Ryan each got two assists. Getting their first goals of the season were Allison Stevenson, Ben and Nathan Brown assisted by Nic McArter, Dustin Fritz, Joe Jacklin, Cole Zwep and Brent Alexander. The team was on fire for the tie with Palmerston and the win over Blyth. A fantastic effort by all. Brussels Tykes tie Palmerston, beat Blyth Winter Sports Pages B l y t h B u l l d o g s A t o m — B a c k r o w , f r o m l e f t : L o r e t t a T h o m p s o n , T r e v o r R a y n a r d , A a r o n P o p p , T y l e r B l a c k , J o h n L e C o m t e , J e f f P l a e t z e r , M a t t h e w P o p p , F o u r t h r o w : C o a c h e s K i r k S t e w a r t , C h a d H a g g i t t , C o l e S t e w a r t , K a r e n P e n n i n g t o n , D o r e e n T h o m p s o n , L i n d a P l a e t z e r , D o u g W a l k e r , L a r r y P l a e t z e r . T h i r d r o w : C o d y D u c h a r m e , D a n a T e e d , J a m i e P l a e t z e r , K e l s e y S m i t h , M a t t h e w C l a r k e , E m m a B r o h m . S e c o n d r o w : R y a n P a q u i n , A l i c i a M i d d e g a a l , C a r l y W h i t f i e l d , C o d y R i c h m o n d , K i r b y C o o k , C o d y K e d d y , C a l e b B r o w n . F r o n t r o w : A d a m C r o n i n , K e v i n P e n n i n g t o n , J o n a t h o n A t k i n s o n , K a y l a B l a c k . A b s e n t : S t e v e n E l l i s . The Citizen Coaches and parents ~ we need your team’s picture and players’ names • Hockey • Broomball 1. Please submit team photo A.S.A.P. 2. Please include players’ and coaches’ names for under the photo. Please help us get ALL the Winter Sports teams published. 404 Queen St., Blyth 523-4792 541 Turnberry St., Brussels 887-9114 It’s over for PeeWee Dogs Lightning looks to advance