Stephens Equipment Bantam Highlanders Play Good Enough to Win, but Come Home With Only One Point Over Weekend Play
On their second to last visit to the Niagara region the Stephens Equipment Highlanders played a 6:20 pm game against the Southern Tier Admirals at the Welland Main Arena.
Play was end to end and it wasn’t until 5:02 of the 1st period that the Admirals opened the scoring on a delayed penalty call. At 2:49 the Highlanders evened up the score when Caleb Stephens (Collingwood) won the face-off to Ben Van Ooteghem (Saugeen Shores) who got it back to Garrett McFadden (Kincardine). A quick snap shot from the point found the back of the net. The second period was a penalty-filled stretch of the game and it wasn’t until the 1:52 mark before the next goal came. While with the man-advantage Van Ooteghem scored on a pass across the front of the net from Jordan Vanhaelemeesch (Saugeen Shores). Darcy Witt (Collingwood) assisted on the play when he stripped the puck off an Admirals player before it could be cleared from the home team’s end. The Admirals evened it up with 20 seconds left in the second period. With the man-advantage again, the Highlanders took the lead for the second time of the game at 14:01 when Tyler Rolfe (Shelburne) deflected a point shot from McFadden. At 10:31 the Admirals tied it back up at 3-3. The rest of the game had stretches where one team and then the other maintained sustained pressure in the opposing team’s end but neither team could score, ending the game in a tie.
On Sunday the Highlanders were at the Mohawk Quad to play the Hamilton Bulldogs. It wasn’t long before the Stephens Equipment crew was in trouble. At the 13:00 minute mark Hamilton scored when the visiting Highlanders were careless in their own end. While the Highlanders were still off balance the Bulldogs struck again eleven seconds later to take an early 2-0 lead. The rest of the period featured fast play and evenly distributed chances to score, but no more goals for either team were scored for the remainder of the first period. The second period started off much the same as the first but in reverse this time, starting at 13:15 when Vanhaelemeesch blocked a shot from the Bulldogs’ point-man and was the beneficiary of a break-away, easily beating the Hamilton goal-tender. Then at 12:43 on the same shift Van Ooteghem had a rebound from a Vanhaelemeesch backhand shot to deposit into the open net. Darcy Witt also assisted on the play. The Stephens Equipment team played strongly for the rest of the period, but couldn’t add any further goals to their total. At 4:42 the Bulldogs got a break when the lone Highlander defenseman tripped up and missed the puck as it came to him. That left a Bulldog player free to skate in alone and score to take a 3-2 lead. The second period finished quietly with no further goals. The third period started off with the Bulldogs getting a number of early chances to widen the lead, but goalie Tyler Fassl kept the visitors in the game. Late in the period, with a shortened two man-advantage, Vanhaelemeesch had the perfect opportunity to tie the game but his back-hand shot was snagged by the Hamilton goalie before it went in the open net and try as they might the Highlanders couldn’t get the equalizer before the final whistle went to end the game at 3-2 in the Bulldogs favor. It was an exciting game to watch and both teams played a good, solid game.