This weekend Squire John’s Grey-Bruce Highlanders AAA Minor Bantams gained three of a possible four points to raise their regular season record to 14 - 8 - 3 for a total of 31 points and third place in their league standings.
They played their first game this weekend in the PowerAde Centre against the Halton Hurricanes. Halton got the first goal on the power play off a re-directed shot from the point that eluded Highlander goaltender Tyler Fassl (North-Bruce Peninsula) at the 5:35 mark of the first period. At the 2:40 mark of the second period the Highlanders finally got on the scoreboard. Garrett McFadden (Kincardine) passed the puck out of the Highlander zone up to Ethan Skinner (Kincardine) who carried the puck into the Halton end and got a shot off on the net. Jordan Vanhaelemeesch (Saugeen Shores) had gone up with Skinner on the rush and picked up the rebound to shoot it by the Halton goalie. The Highlanders had several really good scoring chances to go ahead, one of them on a Ben Van Ooteghem (Saugeen Shores) rush to the net and the other a Hugh Murray (Beaver Valley) break-away, but the team couldn’t capitalize on them. The final score of 1-1 did not reflect the actual play of the game, as the Highlanders outshot the home team by a 33-10 margin, with the shots pretty much evenly spread out through all three periods for both teams. Credit can be given to the Halton goaltender for keeping the Highlanders to the one goal.
Their second game was at home in Chesley against one of their nemeses, the Brampton Jr. Battalion, who have won the three previous meetings by scores of 4-3, 3-0 and 3-2. Brampton opened the scoring at the 2:00 mark of the first period while short-handed, when one of the Brampton players pressed and got hold of the puck to go in alone to score on Highlander goaltender Aaron Johnston (Chatsworth), taking a 1-0 lead. Logan Davidson (Creemore) scored at 1:17 on the same man-advantage to tie the game up at 1-1, assists coming from Hugh Murray (Beaver Valley) and Brenden Welsh (Owen Sound). Later in the period, around the 4 minute mark, the Battalion almost went ahead when a goal was called back after a Brampton player high-sticked the puck and then stuffed it in the net.
At 12:50 of the second period, Davidson put the Highlanders ahead 2-1 batting in the puck after a battle for it took place around the Battalion net. Ethan Skinner (Kincardine) and Murray assisted in that battle. At 6:30 of the second, Brampton found a way to even things up at 2-2 when one of their players dug the puck out of the corner and passed it to a team-mate alone in front of the net, who was able to beat Johnston.
The same level of play continued on in the third period, but the Highlanders seemed to have more gas. But it wasn’t until the 1:11 mark when the hard work finally paid off. Davidson got his third goal of the game when he picked up the rebound off a Garrett McFadden (Kincardine) shot, skated past the Brampton goalie and stuffed the puck into the empty net for a 3-2 lead. Murray got his third assist of the game by setting up the point shot. The Squire John’s easily held off the Battalion in the dying moments as the visiting team pulled their goalie in a bid to tie the game up.