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Alliston Hornets win GMOHL Junior C title

March 11, 2015   ·   0 Comments

The Alliston Junior C Hornets are once again the Georgian Mid Ontario Junior C Hockey League champions.

The team claimed the title in Schomberg on Monday (Mar. 9) night with a 3-2 win in game four of the series to make it a clean sweep in the final round.

After finishing the regular season in first place, the Hornets dispatched the Fergus Devils in four games during the quarter-final round of the playoffs.

They went on to eliminate the Orillia Terriers 4-1 in the semi-final before meeting up with the Schomberg Cougars in the championship round.

This is the eighth consecutive year the Hornets have gone to the GMOHL championship and they have won in seven of those years. Their only loss came last season to the Penetang Kings.

After winning the first three games of the final series, the Hornets returned to Schomberg for game four and brought a huge contingent of Alliston fans with them who made the trek to support the squad in their bid for the title.

The Cougars played their best game of the series in an attempt to get back into the battle scoring at 7:11 into the third period to make it a 2-2 game.

But a pass from Jacob Tuck to Nick Arcan out in front and a shot to the top gave the Hornets a one goal lead with just over 11 minutes left on the clock.

The Alliston squad pressed hard then killed the last couple of minutes keeping the puck out of their zone to take the win.

“It’s fantastic. It hurt last year when we lost to Penetang in the finals and we vowed this year we wanted to come back and get the League title,” Said Hornets head coach Clay Birkett after Monday’s win. “We’ve been going for this for 178 days since game one of the season – which was in Schomberg so it’s pretty fitting that we end the season here. Schomberg played well tonight, we just kept countering everything they did and they finally broke down and we got a turn over and got the winning goal.”

The Hornets are not done for the year. Now they will go on to the provincial level to compete for the Schmalz Cup.

“It feels good, very good, (to win the title) but we know we’re not done yet,” Said Hornets captain Tanner Dockerty. “We want to keep going and with the Schmalz now.”

This was the first time the Cougars have been in the GMOHL championship since 2003 when they won the title. Schomberg had a good season then really stepped it up in the final.

“They played well, the scored didn’t tell the whole story,” Dockerty said. “They aren’t the most disciplined team and we made them pay on the power play when we could.”

The Hornets must now wait for the outcome of the Wingham / Walkerton final series taking place in the Western Junior C Hockey League to see who they will play in the first round at the provincial level.

They should have about a week off before the next series gets underway.

“Some banged up bodies are going to take some time to heal up,” Dockerty said of what happens during that week. “We’ll have a couple of good practices to keep the legs going. Then we’ll get back out there.”

As of Wednesday night, Walkerton was leading the Western series 3-1.

The Hornets have met Walkerton in the first round for six consecutive years from 2008 to 2013, and came out on top every time.

There are seven other Junior C Leagues in Ontario currently wrapping up their final series.

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