Grey-Bruce Highlanders Stephens Equipment Bantams Dominate Eagles But Fall to Battalion, News, Bantam, 2011-2012 (Grey-Bruce Highlanders AAA Minor Hockey Association)

    The Highlanders came out strong in the first period but only scored once at 10:12 when Tyler Rolfe (Shelburne) got his own rebound to beat the Eagles goalie low on the his left side.  Darcy Witt (Collingwood) intercepted a pass-out by the Eagles to get the puck to Rolfe on the play.

    The second period was not as strong as the first, but the Stephens Equipment crew potted three goals in that stretch.  It started early in the period when Witt went hard to the corner to free up the puck for Rolfe, who passed it to Garrett McFadden (Kincardine) coming hard to the net where the defenseman promptly picked the top shelf for the 2-0 lead.  At 11:12 Ethan Skinner (Kincardine) got possession of the puck along the right boards in the Eagles’ end and dished it over to Ben Van Ooteghem (Saugeen Shores) who was waiting by the left face-off dot and fired a slap-shot over the Eagles goalie’s shoulder and forcing a goalie change for the visiting team.  While short-handed Caleb Stephens (Collingwood) was in position to knock in a rebound to score the Highlanders’ fourth goal, assisted by McFadden and Rolfe.

    In the third period the Highlanders were at their best, making good crisp passes and in control of the game.  While short-handed again the Highlanders scored again when Van Ooteghem came up with the puck in a broken passing play and sent the puck up ice to Jordan Vanhaelemeesch (Saugeen Shores) who had started up ice when he saw the opportunity present itself and in the resulting break-away deked the goalie and tucked it in through the open five-hole.  With a man-advantage late in the game, Van Ooteghem fed the puck back to McFadden at the left point, who fired off a snap shot to beat the Eagles goalie at the 0:04 mark for a 6-0 final score.  Nick Redman played solid in net for the shut-out win.

    On Sunday the Brampton Battalion arrived at the Chesley rink intent on coming away with a “W” and succeeded in doing so.  They didn’t dominate the game, but scored when the opportunity came while the Highlanders had difficulty beating the Battalion’s goalie, who also took away any dump-and-chase opportunities with his puck handling skills.  The visitors opened the scoring at the 10:12 mark of the first period, then scored three more in the later two-thirds of the second period:  one a man-advantage goal at 9:37, the second a short-handed notch at 4:08 and shortly after that at 3:49 on a deflection.  At 2:08 Ethan Skinner broke the Battalion goalie’s shut-out bid by coming out from behind the net with the puck and jamming it by the goalie on the inside post on his blocker side.  The third period seemed to fly by quickly but in the last five minutes the Highlanders were kept off balance having to kill off penalties for the rest of the game.  At 2:24 - some twenty seconds after the Highlanders killed off the first penalty - the Battalion widened the lead to 5-1 and then while on the man-advantage Brampton scored at 1:49 to end the game on a 6-1 note.