From the Highest of Highs...
The Jennifer Tedford Remax Midget Cs played their final two playdowns this past week. In arguably their biggest game of the season, they defeated the Kincardine Kinucks on Saturday night in dramatic fashion and just two nights later, they had their best showing of the year versus Saugeen Shores; losing by a slim margin of 2-1.
In the first game, a must-win for the Rebels, the Kinucks opened the scoring early in the second on a goal by Abby Swann. Despite generating numerous scoring chances, the Rebels were unable to get on the board themselves until 5 minutes into the third. Aly Airdrie directed a shot towards the Kinucks net. The shot was deflected to Samantha DeJong who managed to get her own shot through. The rebound bounced out to to Skylar Golem who buried it in the gaping net. Tie game!
The two teams went back and forth for the rest of the third, with Rebels goalie Hannah Mustard making several key saves. With under one minute to go in the game, DeJong carried the puck behind the Kinucks net, closely pursued by two defenders. She stopped on a dime, doubled back, and backhanded the puck out front to Grace Kivell who fired the puck gloveside into the back of the net. Rebels win 2-1! This took the Rebels' playoff record to 2-1-1 with one more game to go...they girls were ecstatic and seemingly poised to head to provincials if everything fell into place the way it was supposed to...
Monday night, the Rebels took on the formidable Saugeen Shores Storm. Hannah was awesome as usual in goal for the home team and it took a 3-on-1 for the Storm to finally net their first. They would add another later in the game, but the Rebels weren't going down without a fight. Late in the game, with the goalie pulled, Kyla Thalen dumped the puck into the opposition's end. Sammy skated hard to the corner, picked up the puck, and fired a hard shot on net. Somehow the puck managed to squeak through the Storm's netminder. 2-1. That's how the game would end, but the Rebels coaches were very pleased with the result.
And then the waiting began...Kincardine had two games remaining in their playdowns and they had to win both outright to move ahead of the Rebels in the standings...and, sadly, when the Rebels awoke this morning, they learned that that is just what the Kinucks had accomplished. No provincials for our girls this year.
The girls should not hang their heads, however. They played their best hockey of the season down the stretch and made their coaches and fans proud!
Good luck to the girls in their year-end tournament March 25-26.