Gordon Anderson
What a difference a day made for the Muskie boys’ hockey team.
They looked tentative and nervous in a 6-1 loss to second-ranked Denis Morris yesterday afternoon, but they corrected themselves this morning in a gritty 4-4 tie against the No. 8 St. Mary’s Warriors (Woodstock) during Pool ‘B’ action at the OFSAA ‘AAA/AAAA’ tournament in St. Catharines.
The Muskies, ranked 11th, displayed the skill of a team that went 30-8 during the regular season. They dominated play 5-on-5 with a hard cycle and aggressive forecheck.
“We got the nerves game out of the way,” said head coach Shawn Jourdain, referring to yesterday’s game.
“We said it’s time to play hockey and that’s what we did [this morning].
“We were the better hockey team 5-on-5, and we cycle the puck better than any team I’ve seen in a long time,” Jourdain added.
Fort High took a 1-0 lead at 6:42 of the first period when Brendan Cawston took a pass from Dustin Brown, went around St. Mary’s goalie Michael Roefs, and tucked the puck into yawning cage.
The Warriors tied the game just over four minutes later on a jam play at the net.
Muskie goalie Wes Brown had a difficult time corralling puck with five bodies in the crease and John Roepman got the last jab at it.
The Fort Frances forecheck and aggressive puck pursuit gave them a 2-1 lead 34 seconds into the middle frame when Matt DePiero went to the net and jammed home a rebound in the crease.
“We’re not the prettiest team by any means,” Jourdain admitted. “It [DePiero’s goal] was a hard-working goal.”
The Warriors knotted the game at 12:53 of the second when Drake Morrell cashed in on a rebound, but Fort High regained the lead 25 seconds later when Nathan Calder beat Roefs with a wrist shot.
Special teams played the central role in St Mary’s taking a 4-3 lead after two.
With 7:35 left, Kyle Robertson netted a short-handed goal when he picked up a loose puck in the slot and beat Brown with a wrister.
Then less than two minutes later, the Warriors had a 33-second 5-on-3 and capitalized when Ray Hiettinga’s point shot, through a screen in front, beat Brown between the legs.
In the final frame, the Muskies had several great chances to even the score but it looked like the goal would never come until Donovan Cousineau beat Roefs to the short side with a quick wrist shot with 2:32 to go.
“I threw the puck to Brendan Cawston and went straight for the net and no one came with me,” Cousineau said afterwards.
“He [Cawston] threw it over to me and I put it low blocker on the goalie,” he noted.
With only the top two teams from each pool advancing to tomorrow’s quarter-finals, Fort High will need wins over No. 14 Mayfield (Caledon), who sit at 1-1, tonight and then Widdifield (North Bay), currently 0-2, tomorrow morning to have a shot at advancing.
In other Muskie news, the girls’ curling rink, making its first-ever appearance at the all-Ontarios, opened play today in Toronto.
The team of skip Tirzah Keffer, third Samantha Mueller, second Carley Busch, and lead Taylor Hartlin kicked off against Mary Ward High School (Toronto) at the Scarboro Golf and Country Club this afternoon.
The Keffer rink will have two draws tomorrow against St. Joseph (Nepean) and Northern C.I. and V.S. (Sarnia) before completing the round-robin Friday morning against Paul Dwyer (Oshawa).
As in hockey, the top two teams from each pool will advance to the quarter-finals.
