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Junior C loop heads into Division final series

March 8, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

It’s not the Carruthers Division final most fans were expecting to see this season in Junior C hockey.

The Penetang Kings will face the Alliston Hornets in the Division championship series.

While there was a good chance the Hornets would make it to the final series, no one saw the upset coming when Penetang knocked out the first place Stayner Siskins in the semi-final. What was even more shocking was that they did it in a four game sweep.

The Alliston team finished the season in the number two spot after spending most of the season in third place behind the first place Siskins and second place Caledon Golden Hawks.

The Hornets moved into second place in January after a series of wins and finished 11 points ahead of Caledon.

They easily eliminated the Huntsville Otters in the quarter-final round before going up against Caledon the semi-final.

That was a well played series by both teams and ended with an Alliston win after a match that went five games.

“I think we were confident in the fact that we’ve been rolling four lines, we’ve been shuffling guys in and out so we’ve got fresh bodies on the ice,” said Hornets coach Travis Chapman after the game final game. “We felt that as the series we’ve played better and put more pressure on their goalie. We feel that over time, sooner or later you’re going to break out. I think the guys wanted to end it tonight. We came out with good jump and got he lead early. Once we got that third goal and we were running down hill and they couldn’t stem the tide. The guys had a real ‘want’ in that tonight to give themselves a weekend off.”

The Penetang team had a good season finishing in fourth place with a 20-21-1 record including two overtime losses.

They were expected to give the first place defending champion Siskins a good run and fans weren’t surprised when the fist game ended with a 2-1 Penetang win.

After two games the Kings were ahead 2-0.

By the time they won the third game, fans were surprised that the Siskins were so far behind. The series ended on February 28, when the Kings slammed the Siskins 5-1 to win the series without taking a loss and earned the right to advance to the final.

It’s going to be a tough final series with two teams that have had a rivalry gong back several years.

The two teams have met five times in the championship final over the past decade with Alliston coming out on top in four of those series.

The Carruthers Division championship series was slated to get underway on March 6, in Alliston with results not available at press time.

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