The Walkerton-Hanover Vet Clinic Midgets began their playoff
round robin series with a solid effort against the strong team from South
Bruce, but hard work and never giving up proved to be the decisive
advantage. South Bruce has a strong team
that finished significantly ahead of Walkerton in the regular season standings,
and came out firing on all cylinders right from the puck drop. Fending off the strong attack from Walkerton
with solid defensive play were Austin Weber, J.P. Kunkel, Eric Schaeffer and
Liam Robertson. But Walkerton stayed
with the hard play by South Bruce throughout the entire first period with
significant scoring chances that just did not find the back of the net by Cody
Jones, Cole Maxwell, Seth Gauthier and Calvin Wilson.
Outstanding goaltending, which made the victory even possible, by Matthew Pfeffer kept Walkerton in the game. But at the 12:23 mark of the second South Bruce’s Damon Sanford found the back of the net after a great centring pass by Mitch Illerbrun. The score remained 1-0 for South Bruce until well into the 3rd period, although without the strong back checking of Mike McAskill the game might have gotten out of reach.
Walkerton came out for the 3rd period with a little more jump and after carrying the puck deep into the South Bruce end and delivering a hard check that knocked the puck loose, Liam Robertson dropped the puck to Jacob Weber who made no mistake and deposited the puck into the net to tie the game at the 12:46 mark. There the game remained for most of the rest of the period, with Jacob McKeeman adding some valuable forechecking, and a couple of blistering shots that helped wear the South Bruce team down. Then with time running out the Webers took control, with Jacob Weber scoring his second of the night, deflecting a feed from Austin Weber to take the lead at the 2:51 mark.
Walkerton held on, killing off a penalty in the final two minutes of the game, thanks to outstanding play by Calvin Wilson and Mike McAskill and Walkerton’s defensive pairings. This was a strong effort by Walkerton and this first win on the first official game of the playoffs hopefully is a sign of more to come.