Mitch Calvert
NORTH BAY—The Muskies were 20 seconds away from their second win at the all-Ontarios this morning but a late goal by Senator O’Connor off a mad scramble in front salvaged a 4-4 tie.
That left Fort High with a 1-2-1 record—good for third place in Pool ‘C’ but not enough to advance to the quarter-finals.
Third-ranked Upper Canada College finished first with a perfect 4-0 record while St. Marcellinus grabbed the second playoff berth regardless of the outcome of their game against Central Algoma later today.
Zach McCool scored two power-play goals to pace the Muskies against Senator O’Connor while Blake Wepruk and Taylor Jorgenson added singles.
Tyler Serio netted the game-tying goal to complete the hat trick for Senator O’Connor (0-2-2) while Eric Crawford added the other.
The black-and-gold earned their lone win after hanging on for a 5-4 victory over 15th-ranked Central Algoma yesterday afternoon.
The Muskies took a 5-1 lead into the third period, but the Huskies stormed back. Two goals by Ethan Campbell and one from Bret Campbell before the period was half over got Central Algoma within one but couldn’t get the equalizer.
Fort High gave up seven third-period goals over their first three games, and relinquished leads to both Upper Canada College and St. Marcellinus before their meeting with Central Algoma.
It was nearly deja vu all over again.
“I think we got too excited trying to score more goals [in the third], and we had some breakdowns in our defensive zone which we’ve had trouble with all year,” Muskie head coach Shawn Jourdain said of the rough final frame yesterday afternoon.
“You see three or four guys trying to leave and one guy back, and that’s when they got their goals.”
Jourdain’s son, Mike, agreed, noting the Muskies got away from doing the little things right in the final period.
“We weren’t moving our feet or playing well in our defensive zone,” he lamented. “We were trying to dangle too much.
“I guess everyone thought we could just walk through them because we were winning by so much, but we have to take care of the little things first.”
The Muskies looked like they weren’t gripping their sticks as tight in their third game at the all-Ontarios—and it paid off in spades early on.
Jorgenson lit the lamp on his second shift and Ryan Shortreed added another on a pretty backhand deke on a breakaway to put Fort High up 2-0 before the game was five minutes old.
Central Algoma’s Jordan Oikari re-directed a centering pass past Devon Stromness to cut the deficit in half midway through the first.
The goal of the game came off the stick of Kyle Herr just over a minute into the second, when he took a quick dish from Jorgenson at the blueline in full fight and blasted a slapshot top shelf from the left circle.
Jamie Kaun pinched in from the point and fired a slapshot from the slot off a pass from Shortreed at 12:02 to make it 4-1, then Matt DePiero closed out the second-period scoring spree when he wrapped one around the net off a Kaun rebound just 20 seconds before intermission.
“If we had been able to play a game like this to start, I think it would’ve helped us instead of playing the top two teams in our division right off the start,” coach Jourdain noted.
“I think it would’ve played out differently.”
