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Sports Oakville Beaver SPORTS EDITOR: JON KUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 255) Fax 905-337-5567 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2008 39 Blades, Tigers even after weekend split AURORA -- Provincial Junior A Hockey League squads have struggled to solve Scott Greenham this season. Sunday, however, the Aurora Tigers had no such trouble. The Tigers used bank shots, screen shots and deflections to score five goals on the Oakville Blades netminder, rolling to a 5-1 win over the Blades at the Aurora Community Centre and tying the teams' Ontario Hockey Association semifinal series at a game apiece. The Blades and Tigers will meet again tonight in Oakville (an 8:30 start at Joshua's Creek Arenas) for Game 3. Aurora's Jordan Watts, who scored 57 seconds into Sunday's game, said the Tigers needed a different approach after being limited to just a first-period marker in a 4-1 loss in Oakville the night before. "(Saturday) we had no bodies in front," said the forward, an Oakville native who is friends with several of the Blades players. "(Sunday) we got in (Greenham's) line of vision and were battling harder for rebounds." David Morley and Mark Thorburn scored goals 20 seconds apart in the second period to break the game open, giving Aurora a 4-1 lead. The Tigers led 2-0 after the opening frame before Kellan Lain got the Blades within one, converting a shorthanded breakaway with a nifty deke. Morley finished the game with a pair of tallies. Paul Dupont had the other Aurora goal, and Aaron Barton stopped 36 of 37 shots to earn first-star honours. The five goals were the most Greenham, owner of a 2.32 goalsagainst average and .923 save percentage this season, had allowed in the playoffs. "They just kept coming. They were relentless," said the Blades' Lindsay Sparks. Sparks had two goals the previous night as Oakville scored four unanswered markers after the Tigers' Sam Yearsley opened the scoring. Chris Haltigin and Kyle Badham also tallied for the Blades. Oakville played Sunday without one of its top snipers, Julian Cimadamore, who was a late scratch because of the flu. Game 4 of the series is scheduled for Friday in Aurora, a 7:30 p.m. start. -- Jon Kuiperij BILL ROBERTS / SPECIAL TO THE OAKVILLE BEAVER SERIES EVEN: Oakville Blades defenceman Chris Haltigin carries the puck during the Blades' Provincial Junior A Hockey League semifinal series contest Sunday against the Aurora Tigers. Aurora downed the Blades 5-1, evening the series at a game apiece, with Game 3 set for tonight in Oakville. Revamped minor atom AA team delivers OMHA title By Jon Kuiperij BEAVER SPORTS EDITOR If he felt in need of validation, Rob Stanbury certainly got some Saturday in Peterborough. The Oakville minor atom AA Rangers head coach took some heat last fall when he overhauled the team, bringing in eight players from the novice A squad that he had coached to an Ontario Minor Hockey Association Central championship the previous season. That "I was not wellrestructuring paid off last weekliked for a while, end as the minor atom AA Rangers downed Peterborough and might still not Church 4-1 in Peterborough, finbe liked today, but ishing off a three-game sweep in I'm there for the the OMHA Central final. kids and not the "I blew that team up. There parents." were only four returning kids... some went to (triple-A) and I cut Minor atom AA some, which was really hard to do," said Stanbury, noting he felt coach Rob Stanbury the team needed radical changes after posting mediocre results the previous two years. "From my point of view, it put me in an awful tough spot. I was not well-liked for a while, and might still not be liked today, but I'm there for the kids and not the parents. In my gut, I said that if I don't finish this thing off, people will question those decisions. We made wholesale changes, and now there's another banner hanging up." Having eight players with OMHA finals experience might have paid off this year, Stanbury said. The Rangers were hardly fazed by the pressures of the championship series, evidenced by a 10-0 pounding they laid on Peterborough in the series opener. The rest of the series was much more NUMBER ONE: The Oakville minor atom AA Rangers won the Ontario Minor Hockey Association Central championship last weekend, finishing off a finals sweep with a 4-1 win in Peterborough. competitive, as the Rangers needed overtime to win the second game, 2-1, and then scored three third-period goals to break open the clinching game. "I don't know what (the opening game rout) was all about," Stanbury laughed. "That first game, all we had to do was open the door and let them go. It was unbelievable how well they played that game." The Rangers were 18-5-5 in Tri County league play this year, finishing second to Brampton (21-2-5). Oakville did not face Brampton in the playdowns, however, as the Battalion was upset in its first-round grouping. The Rangers' toughest test in the playoffs, Stanbury said, was the Burlington Eagles. Not only did the first-to-sixpoints semifinal series need six games to decide (the Rangers won the deciding game 3-1 in Burlington), but Oakville players paid a physical toll throughout it as well. "We got beat up bad," said Stanbury. "There were lots of See Other page 40