The Walkerton Hawks played host to The Alliston Hornets on April 1 for game seven of their Schmalz Cup quarter-final matchup, hoping to beat the odds for their third consecutive game seven victory.
The Hornets swarmed the net in the first period and tallied four goals, managing to hold on for the 6-3 win, and eliminating The Hawks from the post-season.
While most teams in the Western Junior C League hung up their skates in the second week of March, The Hawks fought through until the beginning of April, playing 21 games in 35 days.
They spent much of that time with their backs against the wall, facing elimination after dropping three of their first four games against The Kincardine Bulldogs and again versus The Hanover Barons.
Walkerton improved their record in games facing elimination to 7-0 when they topped The Hornets in Alliston in game six by a score of 3-2.
Walkerton went two-for-four on the power play and that spelled the difference in game six.
Justin Wakewich opened the scoring in the first period on the power play, assisted by?Tyler Allen and Steve Collins.
Alliston tied the score with the lone marker of the second frame before Allen tallied another power play goal in the opening seconds of the third.
Alliston drew even again with a power play goal of their own at 8:40, but less than a minute later Tanner Shlakat put away the game winner with his eighth goal of the post-season.
Clayton Fritsch picked up the win making 61 saves. Rob Rankin took the loss with 25 saves.
Hawks General Manager and Head Coach Steve Barrett called game six just another example of the team winning when it counted.
“It’s just like I’ve been saying all season — It drove me nuts, but for whatever reason our guys played when they had to and got wins when they had to. I guess they weren’t ready to pack it in yet,” he said, “It didn’t work out so well for us in game seven.”
The momentum seemed to be in Walkerton’s favour as they took the opening faceoff in front of a home crowd for yet another game seven, but that changed after four early goals by Alliston.
Linemates Michael Campeau and Eric Shannon both picked up three points in the first for The Hornets. Both finished the night with four points, with Campeau, the team’s scoring leader, earning a hat trick.
“Shannon is more of a defensive player, and he got thrown on a line with some pretty offensive guys on?Thursday; It ended up working out for him,” Barrett said, “Campeau is a guy we knew was going to get points this series — I think we kept him to a minimum for most of the games, but unfortunately he busted out in game seven with a hat trick.”
Shlakat chipped in with a goal and Wakewich notched two in the losing effort.
Fritsch made 38 saves in the loss, while his counterpart Rankin made 27 in the win.
The Hornets now advance to the Junior C semi-finals to face the Napanee Raiders.
Besides being the last of Walkerton’s 2009-2010 season, the game also marks the end of the Junior C careers of Wakewich, Mitch Allen, and captain Trevor Smith, who helped out with two assists.
Barrett commented on the loss of these players from the lineup.
“Any time you lose players to age, graduating over-agers are generally your key guys. When you look at the awards that Trevor Smith won in our league, including Top Defenceman and League MVP, guys like that are tough to replace,” he said, “It’s our job to find some more people to log those minutes. We’ll get our heads together to come up with a game plan.”
Looking ahead, Barrett said the team will be looking for a new head coach, who will then confer with Hawks management to determine a new captain.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Barrett said.
Training camp for the 2010-2011 season — where The Hawks will try for a fourth consecutive Western Junior C title — is tentatively scheduled for mid-August.