The Midget AE’s remain undefeated in league play, piecing
together a string of seven wins to take over first place in their league
play. The team travelled to St. Clements
this weekend to compete in the Regional Silver Stick tournament.
Game one would be against the home town Twin Centres Stars on Thursday night. Zac Robinson would get the Cyclones on the board with two and a half minutes left in the first with assists going to Bryce Fletcher and Josh Coelho. Curtis Jackson put the Cyclones up by two with just one second left on the clock in the second period, assists going to Cole McKee and Robinson. Strong defensive play would keep the Stars off the scoreboard and would earn the shutout for Nick O’Grady.
The opponent on Friday night would be an aggressive bunch from Norwich. The Knighthawks would take an early lead just over three minutes into the game, but the Cycs battled back to tie it up just over a minute later on a goal from McKee, assisted by Ben Bowman and Cooper Miller. McKee scored his second of the game with just under half a minute left in the first, assists to Austin McGrath and Michael Uptigrove. The Norwich boys then started to show their rowdy side and started to fill the penalty box. The Cycs capitalized on the power plays and put two pucks past the Knighthawks tender in the second period to take a four to one lead. The goal scorers were Miller and McGrath with assists going to Fletcher, Reid Gooding, Bailey Matheson and Uptigrove. The Cycs laid back in the third period and didn’t get caught up in the rough play of the Norwich boys and would take a four to one victory.
The Tillsonburg Tornadoes would be the opponent on Saturday afternoon to finish out the round robin play. After the interesting, penalty filled game against Norwich, the Tornadoes game was a real treat for the fans to enjoy. Both teams were there to play hockey. Again, McKee would score the first two goals for the Cyclones, assisted by Brett MacLeod, Miller and Jason Bulmer. Matheson would finish off the scoring in the third, assisted by Uptigrove to give the Cycs a three to nothing win and another shutout for O’Grady. Kudos to both teams for a penalty free game!
Going undefeated in round robin play assured the boys of first place in their grouping which would pit them against the Ayr Flames, who finished second in their group, for the semi-final match-up on Saturday night. Just four seconds after the first drop of the puck, the Flames were penalized, giving the Cyclones their first power play opportunity. Unfortunately, the boys couldn’t generate a great deal of offense due to the strong penalty killing Flames. The Cycs took the lead midway through the first when Miller tipped in a Bowman slap shot from the blue line, also assisted by MacLeod. The Flames came back with three unanswered goals and held the three to one lead until 2:01 of the third, when Jackson would find the back of the net with a wrister from the blue line, assisted by Fletcher. Just under a minute later, Jackson would repeat, assisted by Robinson. The third period buzzer sounded and the boys were going to overtime. With momentum on their side, the Cyclones went to work and created numerous scoring chances. At least five faceoff wins in the Flames zone ended with slap shots from the blue line, only to be stopped by a solid Flames goaltender. With four minutes showing on the clock, a questionable missed call in front of the Cycs net that took the defenseman out of the play would open up a lane for a Flames forward who made no mistake in rifling the puck over O’Grady’s shoulder to give the Flames the victory.
Congratulations to the Cyclone boys and coaching staff on a very hard-fought tournament! The Cylcones would like to thank Twin Centres for a very well run Silver Stick tourney and would like to wish Caledonia and Ayr good luck in the finals.