It's playoff time and the Tier III West Warriors, sponsored by Hockey Training Above, are fired up.
On February 13, the regular season champion West London Hawks 4 were in town. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first period despite two great glove saves by Reed Bowles. He clearly kept the team in it with several solid saves. A pep talk between periods seemed to make a difference but when the Hawks star hauled down Nolan Miller on a rush late in the second it really 'fired up' Tier III West and on the ensuing power play Miller fed Rylan DeBoeck out front and he fired a blistering shot that dented the twine to cut the deficit to two with 1:03 left in the period.
Netminder Noah Brosens helped spark the offence early in the third with a sliding pad save on London's star, and he used his head to knock down another shot moments later. Miller stole the puck and then dazzled the crowd when he deked left and cut right before going high glove side to pull the Warriors within one with 12:26 remaining in the third.
Brosens was rock solid in the third period making several huge pad and glove saves, and then stood his ground with a big shoulder save and yet another trademark mask stop. The Warriors had several glorious chances to tie it up unfortunately the potent West London squad escaped with a 3-2 victory. It was possibly one of the team's best played games so far.
On February 14, the team travelled to London to face the Oakridge Aeros and came home with a 6-3 win.
The Warriors opened the scoring a minute in after Colston Kibedi threaded a sweet pass up the middle to Nolan Miller and he split the defence cut back left and rifled one high right side.
Unfortunately the Aeros snuck through our defence a minute later and knotted it at 1-1. Brosens got the start between the pipes and he was called on to make two big saves while the Warriors were killing a penalty for too many men then Taten Mikel found Miller in the neutral zone and this time he had to fight his way through a wall of four defenders and converted a beauty to give Stratford a 2-1 lead after the first.
Owen Blain won the faceoff to start the second period and the puck squirted over to Mark Martin. He raced down the left side and fired a blistering shot through the netminder to make it 3-1. A minute later Colten Brenzil won the faceoff deep in the Aeros zone and Ryan Cassone ripped one through for a 4-1 advantage.
Then late in the second Kibedi fired a pass up into the neutral zone to Casen deGraaf and he raced up ice and fired on net. Harrison Robinet was there to snap it home as the buzzer sounded to end the second 5-1.
Less than five minutes into the third deGraaf carried the puck up ice and deep into the Oakridge end. He fed a slick pass out front to Miller and he slid it across to Robinet who made no mistake on his second of the night to give Stratford a 6-1 lead. Oakridge added two goals late but the Warriors were able to win 6-3.
The Warriors have a 2-2 record and will need to be on top of their game this weekend as they host the London Bandits February 20 at the Molson Arena and the Sarnia Junior Sting February 21 at the Dufferin Arena. Both games are at 4:30 p.m.
Submitted by Elaine Pennington