Oct 23, 2016 | brianmckee | 713 views
St. Mary's AE Tournament - Semi Finals
Well That Was Nuts!
There weren't any parents with heart conditions in the stands today, that's for sure!
The St Mary's Bantam AE tournament was a tight race right from the start.
Round robin in pool B play ended with a three way tie.
Oro, Ilderton and Huntsville each had two wins, and each had beaten one of the others.
Huntsville snagged first place by virtue of a slightly better goals for/against ratio than the other two teams.
Oro and Ilderton actually tied on goals for and against as well. In the end Oro's fewer penalty minutes squeaked them into the second spot.
Huntsville started their match against the Mitchell Meteors on Sunday morning looking ready to play.
A fairly even first was highlighted with a goal at 7:42 from Austin McKee on a nice pass from Ben Aben.
Max Farr made some solid saves to keep it 1-0 Otters for the rest of the first.
Things picked up in the second with lots of great chances for both teams.
Ty Zanetti blasted a point shot home at 9:50, but had it called back for an offside call.
Less than a minute later a Mitchell point shot though a crowd somehow managed to find the far top corner tying the game at one.
Huntsville dodged a couple of bullets from both a tough penalty kill at 8:04 and what seemed like an endless shift after Teagen Bennett's stick broke in his own end.
The good fortune ended at 2:09 after a loose puck squirted out to the high slot, with a Meteor player sneaking it into the top corner of the net.
A Mitchel penalty with only 43 seconds left in the period brought the stands to life, but the period ended with the Meteors still up 2-1.
Huntsville was unable to capitalize on the remaining power play time to start the third.
Spirited play led to a Huntsville penalty at 13:11, but a solid PK kept the differential at one.
Three penalties called at 6:37 gave Huntsville another chance to pull ahead on the power play, without success.
Finally, at 2:45 after great shots from Austin McKee and Cam Richardson, Taylor Cottrill scored on the second rebound to finally finish the play. Tied back up at two.
Twenty three seconds later Taylor found another loose puck and roofed it, putting Huntsville up 3-2.
Mitchell wasn't about to roll over. They doggedly pushed the puck down the ice into the Hunstville end and cycled it deep repeatedly.
Finally after a crazy set of scrambling saves by Max, most of them without his goal stick, the third wrap around attempt slid through the crease, bounced off the knob of the stick lying on the ice, and in it went, with 15 seconds on the clock.
Overtime was even crazier!
The format was one minute of play, then remove one player from each side.
Five on five for a minute, and four on four for a minute saw good chances, no goals.
The next minute at three on three seemed to fly by, with Huntsville getting solid possession time in the Meteors end while one of their players had trouble getting back. Still no goal!
Two on two had barely started when Mitchell takes a hooking call on Huntsville's drive to the net.
Mitchell managed to clear the puck down into the Otter's end, and the play afterward provoked Huntsville into taking a penalty of their own.
There's 21 seconds left of what was supposed to be two on two, with a man each in the box.
The game continued for only seven seconds before Mitchell squeaked one in on the short side, past both the Huntsville defender and a sprawling goalie.
A game that couldn't have been any closer ended with a heart break, but the Otters left with heads held high after leaving it all on the ice.