It felt like we couldn’t lose. Like the stars aligned and
things were finally going the Wolves way. The players had spent the whole
season biting and clawing their way through endless injuries and adversity.
They deserved to go on and finish with a banner.
A game of inches.
Hearts broken and tears in parent’s and players eyes.
It just wasn’t supposed to end like this.
In the end, the Waterloo Wolves lost the series to the
Sarnia Sting 2 games to 1 by a score of 2 to 1 with 4:20 remaining when the
final goal against came. It was a battle just like the first two games. A lot
of credit has to go to the Sting. They played hard and disciple. They attacked
when opportunity arose and were structured and defensively sound.
And you know what? The same can be said of the Wolves.
The Wolves dropped game one of the series 4 to 3 with Antonio
Parisi scoring from Casey Ross and Carter Talboom. Logan Landry scored from
Talboom and Ben Schofield scored from Ross. In game two the Wolves came to play
and won 3 to 1. Grayson Seiling scored from Dell Wang and Allan Wang. Hiatt
Rich scored the winner on the powerplay unassisted. Schofield scored from
Landry to cap off the win. Game three was a defensive battle with Reed Rozema
scoring from Parisi and Schofield.
The strength of the goalies was on display all series on
both sides. Ciaran Guitton-Quayle picked up a win in game two and put in a
fantastic performance. He was tested often and only surrendered a single goal.
Jake Howard was equally spectacular and made up for several Wolves errors
turned into scoring chances over his two games. As was the case all season, the
Wolves goalies made every game winnable and were stars.
Playoffs are all about matchups and one of the more
interesting ones was the line of Talboom, Rich and Landry against the Stings
top line. In game one that line didn’t face the Stings top line, and they
burned the Wolves for 3 of the 4 goals. After the line went against them the
line didn’t generate another goal.
A lot of credit also needs to go to the penalty killers and
defense who were all tremendous. Logan Murtha, Ben Sawyer and Jackson Hunter
chewed a lot of minutes in extremely difficult situations. The pairing of Owen
Ottens and Cole Gardiner played their best hockey of the season. You can’t say
enough about Ottens who rose to the top of the line up and was an absolute
stud.
In the end missing players continued to haunt the team. Cam
Murray fell very ill and was unable to dress. Casey Ross missed the final game
as well. Rozema filled in for Ross and stepped up huge. Jimmy Provencher also
stepped up for the Wolves. Provencher is
a really great and steady player the team was blessed to have on the AP roster.
It was no the end the boys dreamed of by any means. That
said, it was one heck of a season and a lot of fun being around all your
players. Thank you all for your efforts, dedication and desire to win for each
other. You all can hang your heads high knowing you left it all on the ice.
Proud of you all!