Joey Payeur
Northwestern Ontario high school hockey supremacy will reside in Fort Frances for yet another year.
Both the Muskie girls’ and boys’ hockey teams retained NorWOSSA bragging rights after winning their respective league finals over the weekend to give themselves another shot at a provincial title next week.
Annalise Hayes scored twice, and Sydney Beck made 26 saves, as the Muskie girls won their third-straight title with a 4-2 win over the Dryden Eagles in Game 3 of their best-of-three final yesterday afternoon at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Fort High, which won its first-ever provincial medal last year in Kenora, will try to turn that silver into gold when it heads to Stratford—home of the defending champion St. Michael Warriors—for this year’s OFSAA ‘A/AA’ championship March 8-10.
Dryden forced the series to the limit after a 6-5 overtime victory in Game 2 there on Friday.
But with only 12 skaters yesterday, the Eagles didn’t have the horses to complete the job—although the issue wasn’t decided for sure until Hayes notched an empty-netter with 21 seconds to go.
“To win it as a head coach for the first time feels awesome . . . the kids played great,” enthused Todd Hamilton, who won as an assistant coach last year alongside the late Scott Clendenning.
“We had some questionable calls we had to fight through but we’ve been dealing with that all year,” he noted.
Rylee Redford also scored while Janelle Kaemingh returned from a one-game suspension for her hit on Dryden’s Taliah Williams in Game 1 to net the decisive goal at 14:26 of the second to make it 3-0.
Leah Balla and Darra Zieroth tallied in the third for the Eagles to close the gap.
Friday’s game had a surreal opening 20 minutes as the teams combined for nine goals, with Dryden leading 5-4.
The Muskies eventually tied it, but Zieroth was credited with her hat trick goal at 5:04 of overtime when the puck went off the stick of Muskie blueliner Moriah Carradice and past Beck.
Emma Noga had a pair of goals to lead the Muskies while Jenna Clendenning, Rachel Jean, and Redford added singles.
As for the Muskie boys, the dynasty is now at nine-straight NorWOSSA championships (there was no true NorWOSSA playoff in 2013 due to a labour dispute involving teachers).
Chase McGuire tallied twice, and Matt Booth earned the shutout, as the black-and-gold swept its best-of-three final with a 3-0 defeat of the host Kenora Broncos in Game 2 on Saturday.
“It was back-and-forth tonight and I thought Matty Booth was spectacular when we needed him to be,” said Muskie head coach Jamie Davis, who has led his team to NorWOSSA gold in all three of his seasons behind the bench.
“It was a huge learning curve for this team and nothing was guaranteed,” he stressed.
Jon Busch added the other goal.
The Muskies now are off to Ottawa for the OFSAA ‘A/AA’ championship March 7-10, where Fort High will look to improve upon its quarter-final losses the past two years.
The rankings for both Muskie teams, and their respective OFSAA schedules, likely will be announced later this week.
