The Scotiabank Major Peewee Jr. Warriors lost game 1 of their
series against the London Mustangs White 4-3 late in Overtime.
The 5th ranked Scotiabank Major Peewee Jr. Warriors, travelled to London on Saturday to begin their six point series on the road against the 4th ranked London Mustangs White. Given the positions of both teams this is expected to be a tightly contested series, and this was certainly the case in game one.
The Warriors' power play scored first midway through the first. Kaden Brame took a shot that hit the post but Danny VanStraaten was in tight, right around the crease to put in the loose puck. Roughly a minute later the Mustangs were pressing at the other end and had a great attempt in the slot off a cross ice pass, but Luke Heisz reached in and got just enough of the puck, right off the Mustangs’ players release of the shot to send the puck high and out of play eliminating a great scoring chance. The first frame ended 1-0.
Play was strong in both directions and the second started with another big defensive play when Luke Zorgdrager broke up a 2 on 1, right inside the Warriors' blue line, without the Mustangs being able to move the puck and starting a rush the other way for the Warriors. Just a couple minutes later Zack Richardson won a key puck battle, also just inside the Warriors' blue line, and got the puck up to VanStraaten. VanStraaten went hard down the right side of the ice, cut to the middle just inside the Mustangs zone and on a play that tricked the goalie, when it deflected off of a Mustangs defender, found the back off the net for his second goal of the game. The Mustangs did finally beat the Warriors goalie Liam Parsons, who played very well in the loss, shortly thereafter and the second ended with the Warriors holding a narrow 2-1 lead.
Five minutes into the third the Mustangs notched the tying goal and then took a 3-2 lead with 7 minutes to go. The Warriors who have been playing great hockey of late, didn’t quit and capitalized on a chance with just under 4 minutes to go. Ayden Hakkers banged in the goal with assists to Brame and Heisz. The Warriors power play units were given their third chance of the game when the Mustangs were called for tripping with 2:31 to go but couldn’t score on this one. The highlight of the 5 on 4 was a monstrous short-handed save made by Parsons during that power play, when a Mustangs player found himself on a breakaway. Parsons stood strong!
The buzzer sounded and at 3-3 we were off to overtime.
Overtime yielded chances both ways and unfortunately for the Warriors, just when it looked like the game was going to end tied, and with only 5 seconds remaining the Mustangs ended the game.
Clearly this is a tough way to lose a hockey game but the Warriors as a team played quite well in the losing effort, doing a lot of things right, and were reminded of this by the coaching staff in the post game chat. While the Mustangs took this one fair and square the game could have easily gone the Warriors way in regulation, given the number of posts and crossbars hit by the Warriors, which this day seemed to be bouncing in the Mustangs favour. The team discussed the need to not let the highs get too high, nor the lows get too low. The best news is that Sunday is a chance to get right back at it and try to even the series when the Mustangs head to Stratford for game 2.