The Southern Broncos and Grandview Parkland Thunder won the A-side finals at the annual Estevan Novice/Atom Tier Two Tournament this past weekend.
The Assiniboia Southern Broncos, which also includes players from Coronach, Kincaid, Glentworth and Lafleche, beat the Swift Current Broncos 6-1 in the atom A-side final at Affinity Place Sunday evening. The Manitoba-based Grandview Parkland Thunder, which features players from Swan River, Roblin, Dauphin, Gilbert Plains and Grandview, took the novice A-side championship with a last-minute 8-5 win over the Morse Riverside Hawks at the Lignite Miners Centre early Sunday afternoon.
“These are two teams that match up really well from the goaltenders all the way through,” said Thunder coach Jeff Legaarden about their game against Morse. “It was just a matter of lucky bounces and we got the bounces at the right time.”
The Thunder went up early on the Hawks thanks to a marker by Ronin Mouck, but Morse’s Wesley Olson replied late in the frame to even the score at 1-1 heading into the second period. The Thunder’s Easton Odut and Brady Turko matched the Hawks’ Olson and Cooper Flath’s offensive output in the second bringing the score to 3-3 with 20 minutes left to play.
Odut put the Thunder up 23 seconds into the third on a shot from the bottom of the circle that went five-hole on Hawks goalie Calder Jones, only to have Turko even up the score four minutes later. After the Hawks jumped ahead halfway through the frame with a shot from the slot that beat Chase Glover, the Thunder’s Cade Legaarden again evened the score just over a minute later. With 2:30 left to play, Turko notched the hat trick to give Grandview a 6-5 lead. Odut got the insurance marker one minute later before registering his own hattie with 21 seconds remaining.
“We put the team together after the regular season is done,” said Legaarden. “We started two weeks ago, so this is our first tournament we’ve had together as a team. Obviously it turned out real well. We’ve got a pretty good core group and everybody contributed.”
The Estevan Bruins novice tier-two team fell 6-1 to the Gull Lake Bandits in the C-side final Sunday morning at Affinity Place. Estevan’s Payton Phillips scored the team’s goal, while Pierce Lozinsky took the loss in net.
“It was a good game,” said Bruins coach Rodney Phillips, noting his roster includes select players from Estevan’s novice teams. It was “pretty evenly matched and the kids just got a little tired towards the end, but I think they had a lot of fun.”
The Estevan Bruins atom tier-two team came out flat in the C-side final against the Whitewood Black Elks, but thanks to a first-period goal by Tyson Czernick carried a 1-0 lead into the second. The Bruins’ Denver Sehn and Logan Lang got on the scoreboard in the middle frame before the floodgates opened in the third with Estevan’s Sehn and Czernick notching singles and Tanyan Strudwick recording the hat trick. Bruins netminders Tyler Piper and Jake Rubiletz combined for the shutout.
“It was huge for us,” said Bruins coach Lloyd Sehn about the win. “We had a good season. We had mixed results throughout the tournament season, so for us to win the last two games (and) finish strong means the world to the kids and to the rest of us as well.”
Sehn said his team features players from the various Estevan atom teams who each joined together at the beginning of March for four weekends of tournaments. He said they didn’t make the final in a Melville tourney the first weekend, lost in the A-final to Swift Current in Minot the second weekend, fell in a consolation game in Grand Forks last weekend and finally won the C-side at their home tournament on Sunday.
“The kids had chemistry,” said Sehn. “We put a checking line together to work a shutdown game against the other team’s top lines. They did their job, (which provided) some room for our scoring lines and we executed really well. For that to all come together and materialize at the end of the year was just a great moment for everybody.”
Mike Elder, coach of the Southern Broncos, said their relentless forecheck and defensive pressure in the offensive zone were the keys to their 6-1 win over the Swift Current Broncos in the atom A-side final. He said the kids put into action what they were taught in practice and executed that system to get the win.
Southern’s Carter Skarbon, Luke Packet, Easton Lee, Boston Hawkins, Campbell Pinsonneault and Keden Meekan all lit the lamp against Swift Current, while Walker Berner earned the win between the pipes. Swift Current’s Nick Kitchen was the only Bronco able to beat Berner.
Elder said his players have grown by leaps and bounds since the March-tournament team was first assembled three years ago. He said this was the second time they’ve played in the Estevan Novice/Atom Tier Two Tournament, having won the C-final as second-year novices last March, and the hope is they’ll be able to show off their skills in the Energy City once again next spring.
