Jan 31, 2016 | jdenham | 793 views
A Battle To The End
It was anticipated that this would be an exciting game and the fans weren't disappointed. The Glanbrook PeeWee AE team took advantage of the 16 minutes in penalties handed out to the Minor PeeWee Jr. Falcons and scored 2 power play goals. That would be all they needed to hand the Falcons a 2-1 defeat Saturday night at Bill Burgoyne Arena.
After a scoreless first period the Jr. Falcons opened the scoring at the 7:09 mark of the second period when Eric Venneri banged in a loose puck in front of the Glanbrook net. Assists were credited to Owen Bartel and Myles Radersma.
With just 3:02 remaining in the second Glanbrook tied the game 1-1 on a power play. Less than 5 minutes into the third period Glanbrook would score another power play goal to take the lead 2-1. Both teams had several good scoring opportunities in the remaining 10 minutes of the third period. However, both goalies held their ground.
The Jr. Falcons pulled their goalie in favour of an extra attacker with a minute to play and swarmed the Glanbrook net. With 34 seconds remaining in the game the Jr. Falcons were assessed yet another penalty and were force to put their goalie back in the net. With 12 seconds remaining in the game and a face-off deep in the Glanbrook end the Jr. Falcons once again pulled their goalie. After the face-off they battled hard and continued to press. With one second remaining a puck was sent "bar down" off the cross-bar but unfortunately landed on the wrong side of the goal line. The game ended 2-1 in favour of Glanbrook. However, the "never give up" attitude of the Jr. Falcons was impressive to say the least.
Jr.Falcon's goaltender Ben Brendzy was nothing short of amazing as he turned aside 26 of the 28 shots sent his way including 10 in the first period alone and a couple of breakaways.
Several other Jr. Falcon players had strong games and the Team looks poised and ready to play their best hockey in the Niagara District Hockey League (NDHL) Playdown Tournament next weekend. The winner of that tournament will represent the NDHL in the OMHA Playdowns.
Before that though, the Jr. Falcons have one last league game in Grimsby this coming Tuesday night.
GO FALCONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!