Mar 30, 2015 | Lisa Pietras | 1991 views
Bantam AE win Tri-County Championships
The Guelph Jr. Gryphons Bantam AE win the Tri-County Championships after a long 6 game battle against the Hespler Shamrocks!
The 2014/15 Bantam AE team had 8 wins, 3 losses and a tie in their final 12 games to win the Tri-County finals.
Starting the Tri-County round robin, Guelph faced Hespler in game 1 and lost in overtime, 2-1. That would be the only game Guelph lost in the round robin, finishing in 2nd place with a 5-1 record behind Hespler who finished 1st with a 6-0 record. This set up the Tri-County championship series to begin on March 9th in Hespler.
Guelph won the first game, 4-3 and it was clear to see these teams were closely matched and this was going to be a long hard fought series.
Game 2 was played in Guelph on Wednesday March 9th and again Guelph prevailed with a 4-3 win in overtime. This gave Guelph a 4 point lead in the series and sent the teams back to Hespler for game 3.
In game 3, the teams again went to overtime with nothing resolved ending in a 2-2 tie. This gave the Gryphons a 5-1 point lead in the series and looked all but over. But the Hespler team came back with a 5-4 win in game 4 and a 2-1 win in game 5 to tie the series with 5 points each, setting up a classic game 6 matchup. These teams were evenly matched all the way through tallying 15 goals each.
Guelph hosted game 6 on Sunday March 29th at the WERC. Hespler took an early lead, but Guelph scored the equalizer before the 1st period ended. Guelph came out strong in the 2nd period and scored 2 goals to lead 3-1 going into the 3rd. But Hespler score just 17 seconds into the 3rd period to make it 3-2 and setting the stage for a very entertaining game. Guelph scored again to make it 4-2 and held on for the victory to gain the championship title.
Guelph finished the season with a 30-20-8 record under first year head coach Rob Devlin.
The Bantams will finished their year off in the Dunsmuir Memorial Tournament the weekend of April 10th - 12th.
Congratulations to the entire team for a well deserved season. You played hard, listened and adapted well and were rewarded for all your efforts!!!
Jeff