Five local teams advance at St. Peter’s Classic
Playoffs Thursday at St. Peter’s Classic Hockey Tournament
All five Peterborough varsity boys teams have advanced to playoffs at the 14th St. Peter’s Classic high school hockey tournament.
In the A Division, the St. Peter Saints (1-1-1) squeaked into Thursday’s semifinals while in the C Division, the unbeaten Crestwood Mustangs (3-0) and Holy Cross Hurricanes (3-0) are joined by the Adam Scott Lions (2-1) and Thomas A. Stewart Griffins (1-2) in quarter-finals. St. Peter and Holy Cross are also represented in girls and junior boys playoffs.
On Wednesday, the Saints beat Uxbridge 2-0 in their opener, tied Kingston’s Holy Cross Crusaders 2-2 in their second game and lost 1-0 to Cobourg’s St. Mary’s thunder. They needed Uxbridge to beat Holy Cross by two or more goals to advance. Uxbridge (1-2) did them one better eliminating the Crusaders (1-1-1) 3-0. The Saints will play defending champion Orangeville at 10:25 a.m. at the Kinsmen Civic Centre. St. Mary will face Scarborough’s Sir Oliver Mowat in the other semifinal. The final is at 1:25 p.m. at the Evinrude Centre.
The Saints left the ice unsure if they would advance.
“I’m not too disappointed with the way the boys played,” said Saints coach and tournament convener Kevin Fitzgerald.
“They battled really well today. We ran into a hot goalie. We had a six-on-four power play with our goalie pulled for two minutes and they killed it off. We kept our goalie pulled and kept sustained pressure and just couldn’t put it behind him. Sometimes you have to tip your hat to a good goalie.”
Thunder netminder Matthew Dees is actually their secondstring goalie but their firststringer was unavailable due to AAA hockey commitments.
“He stood on his head,” Lowry said. “There were four or five chances near the end of the game where he basically saved the game for us. He was phenomenal.”
Lowry said his team was missing four other players to other commitments.
“We found out a lot about our team today,” Lowry said. “We found out they have a lot of character when they’re down and short-handed. They’re a group of kids you can really count on.”
Connor MacGregor scored the lone goal early in the second period. A shot hit the goal and fell behind the Saints goalie and MacGregor poked it over the line.
Fitzgerald hopes for better luck in the playoffs.
“We’ll have our work cut out for us against Orangeville,” Fitzgerald said. “They placed really well at OFSAA last year and have a couple of guys drafted to the OHL. They will be plenty big, strong and fast.”
Crestwood plays TASSS at 8:15 a.m. at the Kinsmen. Holy Cross plays Lakefield College School (2-1) at 8 a.m. at the Kinsmen. Adam Scott faces Napanee (2-1) at 8 a.m. at the Evinrude where the C final goes at 3:35 p.m.
The girls semifinals pit St. Peter (3-0) versus I.E. Weldon (1-2) at 10:30 a.m. and Holy Cross (1-2) meets Hamilton’s St. Mary’s (1-2) at 10:10 a.m., both at the Evinrude where the final is at 2:30 p.m.
The junior final is at 12:20 p.m. St. Peter and Holy Cross are both 3-0 heading into semifinals.
The Haliburton Highlands Redhawks (3-0) are the lone Kawartha league team alive in the B Division. The final is at 4:40 p.m.
NOTE: Full tournament results can be found at app.gameonmobile.com by searching tournament No. 7113 or download the smartphone app.