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18 - The Canadian Champion, Tuesday, May 12, 1998 SPORTS THE CAADIAN CHAMPION TUESDAY MAY 12, 1998 Milton is put out by the champions By STEVE LeBLANC The Champion It took the country's most potent powerplay to finally burst the bub- ble of the Milton Merchants. South Surrey's dominance with the man-advantage was one of the big stories in Canadian Jr. A hockey all season long and Saturday afternoon one last chapter was written using the All-Ontario champs & as victims. Milton's Matt McCandless fires the ball while a1 ner was tagged out but managed to break up a do It could be a By STEVE LeBLANC The Champion Brand new season, same old story. That's the situation facing the HJM Insurance Red Sox. Unless they can land some new recruits in an awful hurry - particularly those who can pitch - it's going to be another long summer for the local men's baseball team. The only mercy Milton felt Saturday was from the rule of the same name, invoked with a 10-run gap after five innings. They were trounced in both halves of their season- opening doubleheader at Brian Best Park, first by the Dundas Chiefs (11-1) and then by the St. Catharines Metros (12-2). While starting hurlers Craig Holloway and Adam Flatt were far from impressive, they can only be assessed partial blame for the lopsided scores. Why? Because the Red Sox weren't defensively sound either and simply don't have a deep enough bullpen to give these guys a sympathetic hook when they start to whither. Holloway did just that after two solid frames in game one, allowing three runs on three hits and a pair of infield errors in the third. Forced to continue through the fourtb, he surren- dered two more runs and loaded the bases - due in part to a couple of more errors - for middle reliever George Moore. Moore retired two Dundas batters before being taken downtown with a grand slam by Joe Davis. Returning to the team after a five-year hiatus, Dundas Chief slides Into second base. The run- Duble play attempt. long season Dwayne Eggleton closed things out on the mound, getting the last two outs, after Moore gave up another homer to Chiefs' Mattie George. Milton's lone score came in the opening frame when first baseman Kevin Wilson cashed in leadoff man Tony Casarin with a single to centre field. Rookie shortstop Dale Sharpe made a couple of nice putouts and recorded the first stolen base of the season in the second inning. R.J. Wild worked a complete game for Dundas, scattering five hits and three walks over five innings while fanning four Red Sox. Things didn't go much more smoothly for Flatt in the aftemoon tilt against St. Catharines. The former Milton District High hurler held the Metros in check through the first and second before the floodgates crashed open. His third-inning campaign featured five mns on one walk and four hits, including a grand slan to Chris Greenville. Flatt recovered somewhat and kept St. Catharines scoreless in the fourth, holding them to just a single hit. Sophomore catcher Jeff Sommer helped out his cause by nailing Dave Lafleur on a third-base theft attempt. Over the final two frames Eggleton gave up five hits, five walks and half a dozen runs in his second relief stint of the day. Moore had to come in and get the final out for him. Wilson scored Milton's second run in their last at- bat, coming home on an RBI single by player/coach •,see POUNDED on page 19 The Eagles scored five powerplay goals on the way to a 6-2 victory over Milton in the Royal Bank Cup semifinals. One night later they would raise the national title high after knocking off Weyburn, Saskatchewan 4-1. Merchants skipper Marty Williamson gave full marks to the BC team's power- play unit, but just as firmly added that they should never have had so many opportuni- ties to utilize it. Shortly after the season-ending defeat he lambasted Vernon, BC referee Darren Zupp with what he said was worse officiat- ing than was seen in Rayside-Balfour dur- ing the Dudley Hewitt Cup series. "We'd seen him in two round-robin games as well and he wasn't much better. "Why the tournament committee went with only three local referees, all from the (Vancouver) Island I don't know. "Officiating chiefs came up and apolo- gized to us afterwards but a lot of good that does us now." Zupp handed out 143 penalty minutes in the contest, including 97 to Milton. In the last nine minutes of the first period alone he levied 10-minute misconducts to Ron Baker, Mike Hurst, Mark McPhail and Shane Sullivan. With a flurry of minor infractions thrown into the mix Williamson's charges fell behind 4-1 in the opening frame and had to rely on a shorthanded tally by cap- tain Jeff Haydar just to get on the score- board. South Surrey was superb with their pow- erplay set-up. Their passing and lightning- quick release on short range shots against starting goalie Ryan Penney was nothing short of overwhelming. The Merchants meanwhile got quite a few quality chances on star cager Peter Wishloff but with so many shorthanded stints they just couldn't sustain much pres- sure. Said Haydar, "They (Eagles) had seven or eight powerplays before we even got our first." Daniel Jacques replaced Penney after the Eagles' fourth powerplay goal and held the Marty Willamson fort for the next 44 minutes with what Williamson called an "outstanding" per- formance. Milton's bench boss also said his team had the eventual Royal Bank Cup champs panicking through the second, particularly after Troy Walczak cut into their lead with a powerplay goal at 4:29. "We were really taking it to them and creating some quality scoring chances. You could see their coach (Mark Holick) was getting nervous," Williamson recalled. "But we were hit with some questionable interference calls to Kevin O'Flaherty and Jeff Hutchins that hurt our momentum." The Merchants fired 11 more shots at Wishloff in the last period but came no closer. Defenceman Jakub Ficenic drove the stake in Milton's proverbial heart with two unassisted goals in the last seven-and- a-half minutes. Fellow rearguard Joe Vandermeer led South Surrey's hit parade with two goals and two assists while Brad Granley and John McNabb drew a pair of helpers each. Merchant assistant captain Steve French helped set up both his team's goals. Single assists went to Darren (Mini) Haydar and defenceman Sullivan, who team president Gregg Carrigan said was fantastic on the blueline. Sullivan had sat out the last two round- • see SEASON on page 19 .1e e e s. Or Get 4,8% tioligilit finasicisig for 'lip to 60 moliths Red Tag Days End June 1st/98 &998 Toyota Ter-cel CE 4 *AM/FM Cassette •Int. Wipers •60/40 Rear Seat •5 speed Manual Transmission -~