Losing by a single goal is never how a hockey team hopes to end their season, but you won’t see any Patriots with their heads hung low.
Mount Forest pushed the favoured Mitchell Hawks to a fifth and deciding game in their Western Jr. C opening round playoff series, thanks to an inspired 3-1 win at home last Tuesday night. The Pats continued their run on Thursday night in Mitchell, where the Hawks finally escaped the Patriot threat with the narrowest of 7-6 wins.
Mount Forest Head Coach Randy Gibbons credited the Patriot upswing on team commitment. He said the players not only committed to being in Mount Forest, but committed to what the Pats wanted to accomplish together as a team.
As a result, the locals skated to their finest playoff showing in several years. Goderich and Wingham each bowed out of playoff contention in three straight games, but Mount Forest proved yet again they had all the tools to succeed in the Western Jr. C. loop.
“We started getting healthy,” said Coach Gibbons. “We beat Mitchell near the end of the season, and it got us thinking we could beat them in a series.”
And it nearly happened, as Mount Forest dominated their guests throughout much of game four last week at Mount Forest and District Sports Complex.
Matt Marshall scored the only goal of the first period, assisted on the powerplay by Chris Zubac, to give the home side the lead. Robert Dejaray doubled the lead to 2-0, thanks to help from Robbie Moe and Curtis Loder, and Moe added an unassisted effort later in the period to cap off a 3-0 Patriots lead.
Mitchell spoiled the Mount Forest shutout with a late 3-1 power-play tally, but it wasn’t enough to topple the team in green, and the series moved on to a pivotal game five.
“We put game three aside and momentum switched,” Gibbons said of the win. “We didn’t quit, even when we were down.”
The Patriots carried that momentum into game five in Mitchell on Thursday, where Mount Forest traded goals with the Hawks over three periods of intense hockey. At one point down as much as 5-2, Mount Forest rallied to lead 6-5, before the Hawks wrenched the game away with two late goals.
Mitchell opened the scoring early, but Matt Reid finished a play from Jon Aitken and Loder to restore the tie. The Hawks retook the lead on a powerplay, and then led 3-1 by 14:12 of the first period. Less than a minute later, Marshall fired in a goal assisted by Aron Hosszu to cut the damage to 3-2.
The home side caught fire in the second stanza, firing in a pair of goals in a span of only five seconds that stretched the lead to 5-2. Unphased, Mount Forest responded by orchestrating a run of four goals, good enough for a 6-5 lead.
“Go into the game loose, work hard, and carry in a winning attitude,” Gibbons said made the difference this season for the much-improved Pats. “You take away one of those and you’re in trouble, but when we got all three, we were hot.”
Allan Campbell scored one from Justin Coburn, and Dustin Campbelll netted one from Hosszu and Zubac to end the second period down only 5-4. Dustin scored his second of the night on the powerplay, and Hosszu buried a 6-5 goal from Thomas Kingston to level off one of the best scoring surges of the entire Patriot season.
Victory, however, was not meant to be for the Mount Forest Patriots, as Mitchell tied the game at 13:27 of the third, and then inked the winning goal at 16:16 of the period.
Dejected after coming so close to advancing into the second round against the Walkerton Hawks, the Patriots are able to look back over their season and draw on a large number of positives. General Manager Cody Feltis has the team moving in a strong forward direction, and the organization will be working hard in the offseason to prepare to bring another year of exciting hockey to Mount Forest fans.