Caledonia Thunder Win Southern Counties Championship!!, News, Pee Wee AE, 2015-2016 (Caledonia Minor Hockey)

This Team is part of the 2015-2016 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Apr 03, 2016 | Raquel Gavey | 859 views
Caledonia Thunder Win Southern Counties Championship!!
The Caledonia Thunder PeeWee AE team capped off a great season winning the Southern Counties Championship Saturday morning in Ayr. 

The team had finished in first place in the regular season and in the playoff round robin but they were faced with the challenge of trying to win one more game against a tough Ayr team who had knocked them out of the OMHA playoffs and were hosting the AE championships. Ayr started the game strong and kept the Thunder contained in their own end, but Macgregor Lawrence fed a breakout pass to Zach Ebert who skated hard down the right side and rifled a shot into the top corner on the blocker side to open the scoring. That seemed to get the  Thunder rolling. A few minutes later, Ebert made a cross ice pass to Tristan Walkinshaw sending him on a breakaway. Walkinshaw calmly deposited the puck into the blocker side of the net once again giving the Thunder the 2-0 lead. The Thunder continued to control a lot of the play but early in the second period, Ayr took advantage of a powerplay  and scored their first goal of the game to make it 2-1. That gave Ayr some life and they continued to press and were able to tie the score up a few minutes later and at the end of two periods the score was 2-2. The Thunder quickly regrouped at the break and came out playing even harder in the third period. Just over a minute into the final frame, Brenhyn Gavey drove the puck to the net and Aaron Oppertshauser corralled the rebound and was able to beat the Ayr goalie giving the Thunder the lead 3-2. Less than a minute later Corey Shelton took a pass from Eric Thompson and beat the Ayr goalie again restoring the Thunder two goal lead. The team continued to play smart hockey playing great defense and keeping pressure on the puck and Ayr had very few chances the rest of the way. When they did, Chris Chmiel was up to the challenge making the save every time. Eric Thompson added an open net goal just before time expired to give the Thunder the 5-2 win and the Southern Counties Championship. Congratulations to the entire team! It was an excellent team effort leading to a great finish.