Valiant Thunder fall in Hewitt semifinal

His feelings were difficult to put into words, but the tear trickling down Josh Baxter’s face said it all.
“It’s hard to believe the season’s done — this is a good group of guys getting separated,” said the heartbroken Borderland Thunder captain, whose saw his junior playing days come to a premature end as his team came achingly close to sending the country’s top-ranked squad home empty-handed.
Close may only count in horseshoes, and the puck luck was not on the Thunder’s side, as Borderland fell 3-2 to the Wellington Dukes in the semifinal of the Dudley Hewitt Cup Central Canada Junior “A” hockey championship Friday night at the Ice for Kids Arena.
But Baxter served notice he couldn’t have gone through the hockey wars of the past season without the full commitment of every Thunder player to walk through the dressing room door.
“This room is full of guys who put up a great fight,” he steadfastly pronounced. “The largest improvement in this group since the beginning of the year has been team chemistry. We’ve really come to believe in the coach’s system.”
Don’t try and tell Thunder head coach Dave Allison that what he had just seen unfold was solely about the final outcome on the scoreboard, either.
“There always has to be a winner and a loser, but as far as I can see it, there’s no losers in our dressing room tonight,” said Allison, whose SIJHL champions rallied from a 2-0 deficit to tie the Dukes, winners of the Ontario Provincial Junior “A” Hockey League title, before succumbing on Dean Byvelds’ decisive third-period goal.
“The hard work they put in and the way they battled back tonight is a testament to how they’ve grown as a team and as individuals the whole year.
“I don’t think people realize the physical toll the game against North Bay (Skyhawks, a 6-5 loss in double overtime) took on us,” he added. “It was like playing Philadelphia (Flyers). Tonight, we played our best game of the tournament. We were right there.”
Byvelds was the fortunate recipient of a bouncing puck that skipped over Thunder defenceman Jon Kocis’ stick, setting up a three-on-one for the Dukes, who thumped Borderland 7-1 in their round robin confrontation.
The Wellington forward used both his linemates as decoys, pulverizing a shot that beat Thunder goalie Dan Hoehne high to the glove side at 11:27 of the final frame.
To his credit, Kocis didn’t dodge the spotlight when evaluating the play after the game.
“I had three guys rushing at me,” said Kocis. “If I’d been able to get a little bit more of (the puck), we would have had an odd man rush going the other way. But I didn’t, and it left (defence partner Chris) Shaen facing a three-on-one.
“This is such a great team. To lose it on a bad bounce is really disappointing. We know if we could have faced North Bay in the final, we could have beat them.”
For his part, Shaen was only pointing fingers of praise instead of blame, mainly at the Thunder faithful.
“The fans were absolutely the backbone of this team,” emphasized Shaen, who drilled the tying goal at 6:16 of the second after Kevin Webb circled the net and fed him as he rushed in from the point. “Without their support, we never would have flown like we did. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart for being there all year.”
In the fourth game in four nights for both teams, Wellington jumped to an early lead thanks to some undisciplined play by Borderland.
After Ian Lockman picked up a roughing penalty, Jordan Freeland capitalized with a powerplay marker at 3:37 to make it 1-0.
Freeland, who was named the Most Valuable Player of the round robin before the game, faked one way from behind the Thunder net, then came around the other side to jam a wraparound behind Hoehne.
Twenty seconds later, Matt Alexander was booked for roughing after the whistle, and while the Dukes didn’t score with the man advantage, the back-to-back infractions sucked the life out of the local crowd that had been shaking the arena foundations since the drop of the puck.
“Except for that first 10 minutes, I think we had the better chances,” said defenceman Jay Phillips. “We definitely could have won the game. But their goalie (Dayne Davis) played well, and the bounces didn’t go our way.”
Mike Konieczny put Wellington in front by two at 9:21 of the first, but the home team kicked the offence into gear at 18:11 of the period.
Lockman sent Kevin Webb in on a breakaway, and the Thunder centre polished off the play with a fantastic deke before lifting the puck over Davis to make it 2-1.
A Borderland powerplay which has struggled at times this year continued to sputter in a second period that gave the Thunder ample opportunity to gain the equalizer and take control of the game.
The Dukes managed to kill of all five penalties called against them in the middles stanza, including a two-man disadvantage which lasted 1:15.
The Shaen goal in the third had visions of an upset dancing in the Thunder’s head, before Byvelds buried their hopes of a trip to Charlottetown for the Royal Bank Cup national Junior “A” championship May 3-11.
With the final chapter complete in his time with the Thunder, Baxter set aside his disappointment enough to applaud the organization and the community for which he laboured the past two years.
“Borderland treated me really good while I was here,” he said. “Coming here was definitely one of my best moves in hockey.”
The Thunder finished the round robin with a 1-2 mark to just barely make it into the playoff round.
After their near miss against North Bay to open the tournament, Borderland didn’t have the same jump in their loss to the Dukes they had the previous night.
Wellington, who received goals from seven different marksmen, took a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes, and played keepaway with the puck for most of the game against a Thunder team that started Dryden Ice Dogs import Ryan McGillis in goal, and played several of their younger players who were absent from the first game.
Brent Varty, Trevor Kell, Byvelds, Mark Campbell, Liam Reddox, Ryan Woodward and Freeland had the Dukes’ goals, while Webb’s second-period tally was the only puck to elude Davis, who made 30 saves in the victory.
With a semifinal spot at stake Thursday night, Borderland watched their SIJHL rival, the Thunder Bay KC Bulldogs, implode in a 5-2 Thunder victory.
Lockman scored on either side of a Trevor Karasiewicz goal to put Borderland ahead 2-1 early in the second. But Karasiewicz, the SIJHL’s top scorer, was sent to the showers after picking up two minors, a 10-minute misconduct and a game misconduct during a second-period mix-up.
Sixteen seconds later, Shaen connected to make it 3-1, and Chad Baldwin made it a three-goal cushion 1:44 later.
Aaron Grynol, who was named the Most Sportsmanlike player of the round robin, had the other Thunder goal, while Alex Barber capped the scoring for the Bulldogs.