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2f5 stouffville suntribune thursday march 30 2006 stouffville suntribune sports work in defensive zone must improve if it hopes to reverse fortunes by mike hayakawa staff writer tonights contest in the provin cial junior a hockey league semifi nal series between the stouffville spirit and oakville blades is just the third game in the bestofseven affair but for the spirit it is pivotal a win by the spirit would enable it to get back into contention as they trail the series two games to none a loss would put them in the unenviable position of having to rally from a threegamestonone deficit despite being down the spirit remain optimistic the series is far from over absolutely its a pivotal game said spirit assistant coach matt gib son of tonights game at the stouf fville arena that starts at 730 weve got to use it to get back in the series to be down three games to none would be quite the hole but we feel oakville havent seen our best yet saturdays game at the domin ion twin rinks arena in oakville before 850 onlookers was similar to last thursdays opener to the point where the spirit played well in spurts however it was not enough for an entire game to come out on top as they suffered a metroland photouesa kortmann stouffville spirit players dustin howard left and jake van allen give oakville blade jesse paul the sandwich treatment during saturdays provincial junior a hockey league semifinal game in oakville the blades won 20 and hold a twogamestonone lead in the bestofseven series the third game is tonight at the stouffville arena at 730 63 loss the spirit held a 31 lead late in the first period on goals by james mcintosh joel sheppard on a power play and mark sullivan before the blades got one back from brandon defazio at the 1915 mark of the period to cut the stouffville advantage that goal combined with an untimely spirit penalty to simon gysbers just 14 seconds after defazios goal seemed to shift momentum in the blades favour just 62 seconds into the second period mike beca delivered a powerplay goal to enable the blades to tie the count at 33 outshooting the spirit 213 in the period alone and 4220 in the contest the blades took the lead for good on daniel calitris second goal of the game trevor elliott deposited two goals in the third period to round out the game scoring you never want to allow a goal late in the period that goal defi nitely created a momentum shift and then we took a penalty and that i dont like that took the wind out of our sails confirmed gibson of what transpired late in the first peri od if the spirit hope to get back to playing the hockey that enabled them to win the north conference gibson feels the club must make a concerted effort to play better in their defensive zone he noted the blades are a team that tends to make the most out of what oppor tunities they are given in the offen sive zone we had some breakdowns in our defensive zone we cant give them oakville that opportunity because they are a team that finish es well they are a very opportunis tic club he said spirit captain ian brunt con firmed the team has strayed from its game plan oakville is a very talented team but we didnt play our style we tried to accommodate to their type of play he said brunt also feels the break in between last saturdays game until tonight should enable the spirit to regroup all we have to do is stick to our game plan and practice hard he said for more on the spirit log on to wwwstouffvillespiritcom local skaters hope to be in sync in prague by jim thomas correspondent theyre the cream of the crop heather penny 22 and bonnie thompson 21 both graduates of stouffville district secondary school and the stouffville figure skating club left sunday to com pete in world synchronized figure skating championships the competition held in prague czechoslovakia con cludes april 2 penny skates with the 23-mem- ber team nexxice out of burling tonkitchenerwaterloo thompson is a member of black ice a team based out of toronto the black ice girls won the canadian synchronized skating title in hamilton earlier this month nexxice placed second both entries will advance for penny and thompson its their last hurrah in synchro com petitive skating penny a fashion design student attending art institute toronto plans to complete her twoyear course and go into business she also hopes to coach thompson a business diploma heather penny skates with the 23- member team nexxice out of burliiig- tonkitchenerwaterloo graduate is studying nursing at seneca college like penny she also plans to teach little people on receipt of her skate coach certificate recently penny returned from international competition in milan italy en route home the team took a side trip to turin site of the 2006 olympics where they were welcomed as conquering heroes bonnie thompson is a member of the black ice team that skates out of toronto i we had to admit we were not olympians penny said but they cheered us just the same competing at the world level isnt new for thompson her team travelled to gotenberg sweden last year and placed sixth both penny and thompson began figure skating at age three under the coaching of stouffvilles hans and judy ahlgren they were like father and mother to us penny said penny started synchronized skating with markham joining the nexxice team seven years ago she credits older sister leslie a former synchro skater now living in calgary with guiding her path leslie will accompany penny to prague along with her parents penny feels fortunate to have escaped serious injury despite the perils of some routines only a few bumps to my head she notes never did i dream id go this far she says there were times i wanted to give up but support from my parents kept me going its been worth it before joining black ice thompson was a member of unionville elite a junior competi tive team in addition to toronto some team members come from as far away as orangeville brampton ajaxandbarrie last year at sweden was won derful thompson says but this year in prague will be even bet ter shes hoping the team will make it to the podium but just being there is a reward in itself clippers downed in om ha finale the oakville rangers skated off with the ontario minor hockey asso ciation minor atom a title sunday after defeating the stouffville clippers 31 in the deciding game in the best- offive series at the stouffville arena robbie armstrong scored the lone goal for the clippers who played the game before an enthusiastic gathering of over 500 onlookers spencer roberts and owen pearce earned assists clippers head coach greg roberts felt the rangers ability to score early and their persistence were the decid ing factors in the contest they scored a couple of early goals and we couldnt respond said roberts but oakville is a great team who we took it to physically and they kept coming roberts was quick to praise the efforts of his youthful charges particu larly in reaching the final against a team from a larger population base the kids did awesome getting there and the fact that we lost to a cen tre like oakville with its population is a great feat for the small town of stouf fville he said