Muskies advance to quarter-finals

The Muskies suffered their first loss at the all-Ontarios this morning, but the black-and-gold still advanced to the quarter-finals later today.
After tying the top-ranked St. Mary Monarchs (Pickering) 1-1 yesterday afternoon, the Muskies fell 4-2 to the ninth-ranked Orangeville Bears this morning to finish pool play in second place with a 2-1-1 record.
That means Fort High will face defending champion St. Michael’s, the first-place team from Pool ‘B’ who were ranked seventh this year, in the quarter-finals at 3 p.m. (CST).
A win this afternoon will put the black-and-gold in the medal round tomorrow morning but a loss means elimination.
St. Mary ended up finishing first in Pool ‘A’ at 3-0-1 and now will face the second-place team in Pool ‘B’ in the quarter-finals.
Orangeville suffered a controversial 2-1 loss to the Chatham-Kent Golden Hawks last night to leave them out of further contention despite this morning’s win over the Muskies in a physical affair.
The black-and-gold had jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals by Tyson Romyn (Brian Vargas) and Brett Meyers (Mitch Green/Jordan Bale).
But the Bears roared back with four unanswered goals for what was a meaningless win.
Muskie head coach Shane Bliss decided to rest Jason Green after the second period trailing 3-2 and put in back-up Wade Friesen for the third. He only allowed one goal on a breakaway.
The Muskies have been the surprise team at the all-Ontarios, being the lowest-ranking squad of the eight which advanced to the quarter-finals.
Then again, the black-and-gold were upset over their 17th ranking coming into the tournament and clearly took out their anger out on what was considered by many to be the toughest of the four pools in the ‘AAA’/‘AAAA’ division.
Facing the Monarchs yesterday afternoon, the Muskies already had played that morning (a 3-1 win over the Golden Hawks) while it was the first game of the day for St. Mary.
But Fort High matched the aggressive play of the Monarchs.
“These guys are staying at the same hotel as us and they’re loud and they don’t respect anybody, and it was fun to run them over and hit them,” said Jake Esselink, who is the Muskies’ most physically dominating player.
“They weren’t intimidating at all,” added Matt Redford. “They came out hitting and crashing, thinking they were going to wear us down, and we just brought it back to them and scored the first goal.”
That goal was provided by captain David Pierce, who pounced on a loose rebound in front of the Monarchs goal less than a minute into the second period.
Although St. Mary squared the score with 4:15 left in the period, Green made some breathtaking saves to preserve the 1-1 tie.
“Bliss showed me a [newspaper clipping] that showed me their goalie was the number-one high school goalie in Ontario and I was like, ‘No, that’s not right,’” said Green.
“So I just went out there and got in their zone, and it felt like the championship for me out there,” he added.
Heading into yesterday afternoon’s game, Bliss, who won OFSAA gold as a player with the Muskies in 1986 and ’89, challenged his squad to show the Monarchs—and the other teams—that they were under-rated heading in and that it was time to act on those feelings.
“I told them that this was their opportunity,” said Bliss. “It’s [their] chance to go out there and making something happen.”
The Muskies did make something happen, and Bliss said he has never been so honoured to be the team’s head coach as he was after the game, when all sorts of people come up to him and congratulate his team on their exhilarating effort.
“It had that championship feel,” he remarked. “I’ve never had that many people come up to me after and congratulate the team.
“They work their butts off out there,” he added. “It just goes to show you what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it and are willing to sacrifice some things to get things.”