Mar 25, 2013 | lgraham | 1036 views
Sat. Mar. 23 / Sun. Mar. 24
The Stratford Nes-Tech Minor Peewee MD Warriors kicked off their four point West Alliance finals this past weekend against the Sarnia Jr. Sting, with a tie and a loss, to trail the series 3-1. Game three is in Sarnia Tuesday night, where it is now do or die for the Warriors, who must win to bring the series home for a fourth and deciding game Wednesday night in Stratford.
Saturday afternoon in Sarnia, the Warriors battled back from an early 2-0 deficit and tied Sarnia 3-3, after a five minute sudden death overtime failed to break the deadlock. Stratford came out sluggish for the first half of the game, but after killing off a two minute five on three disadvantage, came to life. Fifteen seconds after the penalty kill, Marcus Nicholson stood all alone in front of the Sarnia net and made no mistake, taking a pass from the corner and scoring, narrowing the Sarnia lead to 2-1. Josh Smith and Andrew Ivey assisted. Early in the third, Brett Maguire slid a pass across to Kobe Robinson at the point, who moved in and hit the top corner, equalling the score on the power play. One minute and ten seconds later, still on the power play, Nicholson banged home his second of the game on a goal mouth scramble, giving Stratford the lead. Ivey and Kolton Debus assisted. That lead held up till Sarnia scored with 4:52 remaining in the game, to send both teams into game two of the four point series with a point apiece.
Sunday at the Molson Arena, Sarnia scored three unanswered goals late in the third period, over a 37 second span, to defeat the Warriors 6-3. Stratford fell behind early again, trailing 2-0 in the first period until Kolton Debus fired a hard wrist shot past the Sarnia netminder, putting Stratford on the board late in the first frame. Austin Taylor's unassisted power play goal with 3 minutes left in the second period tied the game. The two teams traded goals late in the third to make it 3-3. Debus scored his second with assists to Josh Smith and Ryan Lott. It appeared that the Warriors were headed in their fifth straight overtime, until Sarnia opened the floodgates with 4 minutes left.