The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

C4 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday, April 21, 1999 SportsWednesday An Oakville Beaver Feature Editor: NORM NELSON 845-3824 (Extension 255) Fax:337-5567 OWHA provincial championships Bantam B 's forge a loss and two ties The Oakville Hornets Bantam B rep team, sponsored by GreenLine/M & G Steel, brought their season to a close this past weekend at the Ontario Women's Hockey Association (OWHA) provincial championships. Despite the fact that the Hornets did not proceed to the medal round, head coach John See considered the team's participation in this tournament, and others held throughout the year, a resounding success. Added to that was a winning record in season and exhibition games. Together, they added up to a rewarding and fun-filled hockey season. At the provincials, the first game ended in a 0-0 draw with Barrie. In the second game, Oakville fell 2-0 to Walkerton, the last goal into an empty net. Game three against Windsor resulted in a 1-1 tie with Christina Alexander scoring, assisted by Jennifer Alexander. Teammates that played in the provincials were: Lindsay Cook, Laura Scarfone, Carla Alexander, Dana Rufh, Mary Stewart, Laura Grigor, Chris Grimes, Jamie See, Christina Alexander, Meghan Cooke, Jennifer Alexander, Rebecca Willett and Sonja Podealuk. Atom BB*s post 1-1-2 record The Oakville Hornets Atom BB team concluded their season with an impressive showing at the provin­ cials held in Brampton. The Hornets played some of the best teams in Ontario and came away with a win, two ties and a loss. The defensive squad of Traci Galbraith, Laura Iosue, Sarah Magee, Bianca Mirabelli and Stephanie Latty were superb all weekend. First up was a 2-1 win over Peterborough. Peterborough opened the scoring. Stephanie Secord tied the game for Oakville, and Danielle Bernier potted the winner with help from Rachel Variance and Stephanie Latty. Brandice MOniz had a strong outing and Gabrielle Gaudet turned away all but one shot. Next, the Hornets suffered their lone setback, dropping a tough 3-2 decision to North Metro league and playoff champions, the Orangeville Tigers. At the end of the first period, the score was tied 2-2. Orangeville scored the go-ahead goal with less than three minutes left in the game. Danielle Bernier scored both goals on setups from Amanda Cicchini. Linemate Roxanne Johnson did a great job winning the puck along the boards. The next two games were fast physical games both ending in 1-1 ties. The tenacious play of Jordyn Mackonka and Tenille Clarke kept Chatham back on their heels. Bernier scored for the Hornets. Cicchini dashed Brantford's hopes of advancing with two minutes left in the game. Mary DiMarco picked up the assist. ORANGEVILLE TOURNEY In tournament action, the Hornets skated to a silver medal in the Orangeville tournament. A tie and a win were enough to get the girls a bye into the championship game. In preliminary action, Oakville tied Barrie 2-2. Danielle Bernier scored both goals. Next was a 3-1 win over Peterborough. Picking up goals were Rachel Variance, Stephanie Secord and Amanda Cicchini. The championship game found the girls once again up against Barrie. With two minutes left in the game, the Hornets were down 2-0. Danielle Bernier scored to keep their hopes alive. With just eight seconds left on the clock, Stephanie Secord found the back of the net to send the game into overtime. After a scoreless overtime, the game went to a shootout. Barrie pre­ vailed 2-1. Amanda Cicchini scored Oakville's lone goal. Atom C*s eliminated by eventual champs The atom C Oakville Hornets, sponsored by Merrill Lynch, completed their outstanding season by participating in the Ontario Women's Hockey Association's provincial championships from April 16-18th. Game one pitted the Hornets against Scarborough Sharks. Despite domi­ nating the play and outshooting the Sharks by a wide margin, the Hornets were not able to penetrate the Shark's goalie to score until two minutes into the third period when Andrea McLaughlin found the range, with assists to Monique Kahnert and Christine Allison. The Hornets prevailed in the game 1-0, with Charlotte Capaldo picking up the shutout. Game two had the Hornets against Stratford who came out flying in the first period to go ahead 1-0. The second period saw the Hornets take control of the game and start to wear the Stratford team down with constant cycling of the lines about every half minute. Allison Thompson tied the game halfway through the second period, with assists to Amber King and Melissa Snedden. In the third period, the conditioning of the Hornets paid off as they continued to control the game. With just over three minutes to go, Katie Gorman buried a puck behind the Stratford goalie to finish off a breakaway, with the lone assist going to Christine Allison. With four seconds left on the clock, and with the Stratford goalie pulled in favour of an extra skater, Sarah Grigor iced the victory, 3-1. Assists on the goal went to Katie Gorman and Jackie Szarka. Game three had the Hornets up against the strong Samia Starfire, with Hornets needing a win to guarantee a spot in the semi-finals or a tie to vie for the wild card spot. Sarnia prevailed 3-0 to eliminate the Hornets from any chance of advancing, but the Hornets can take pride in the fact that they were eliminated by the eventual provincial champions who defeated Clearview 6- 0 to clinch the gold medal. The atom C Hornets displayed throughout their season a tremendous amount of skill and determination in posting an overall record of 23-15-11, which included both exhibition games and tournament games against B and BB squads. The team included: goalie, Charlotte Capaldo; defence, Erin Mitzel, Taylor Laughlin, Christine Allison and Jackie Szarka; forward, Ashley Middleton, Katie Gorman, Megan Wanless, Andrea McLaughlin, Monique Kahnert, Sarah Grigor, Melissa Snedden, Amber King and Allison Thompson. Novice BB*s involved in three shutouts The Oakville Hornets novice BB rep team, sponsored by Cl Mutual and JJM Sportswear, competed in the Ontario Women's Hockey Association provincial championships this past weekend. The Hornets opened with a 3-0 loss to the Etobicoke Dolphins. In the second game, the Hornets turned the tables, earning a 7-0 shutout over Windsor. Stefanie Wilson nabbed the shutout. Justine Bernier scored four goals to lead the offence and single markers were added by Madeleine McCann, Brittany Court and Melissa Kennedy. Assists went to Madeleine McCann (2), Brittany Court, Kaitlyn Wheeler and Caitlin Lawrence. Congratulations to the hard working wingers -- Sarah Curry, Melanie Johnson, Melissa Kennedy, Caitlin Lawrence, Madeleine McCann and Alyssa Molfetta. Special mention to the unsung heroes of the blueline -- Erin Beaver, Brittany Court, Dana Dragone and Nicole Mierzwa. In the third game, Leaside managed a three-goal third period to down the Hornets 4-0. Congratulations to the Oakville girls who had a wonderful attitude throughout the provincial tournament and 'never say die' attitude all season. Thank you to coach Jim Court, trainer Cathy Collier and assistants Chris Bernier and Peter Wheeler. The wonderful leadership and enthusiasm shown by the coaching staff took the team from a B classification to BB and on to the provincials. Oakville tuned up for the provincials with a 4-1 exhibition win over Brantford Comfort Inn. Oakville goals were scored by Justine Bernier, Melissa Kennedy, Kaitlyn Wheeler and Brittany Court. Assists went to Dana Dragone, Nicole Mierzwa and Melissa Kennedy. • see future editions fo r more Hornets results at the OWHA provincials Provincial cham pions The Bronte Beach Volleyball Club played the veritable bad hosts at the juvenile midget boys provincial volleyball championship they hosted over the weekend at Oakville Trafalgar High School. The Oakville-based team kept the top prize -- the gold medal -- right here in Oakville. Bronte Beach were top ranked going into the provincial championship game and they came through in the best of five championship match over Solars Apollo from Scarborough in three straight games, 15-13, 15-8 and 15-11. Bronte stumbled a bit in the third set, trailing 4-0 and 9-3 before shutting the door. "They all had to stay focused," said coach John Burt. "It took a lot of heart to come back and sustain themselves." Both teams actually earn trips to the Canadian nationals which will be held over the May 7-9 weekend in St. John's Newfoundland. Bronte Beach won their semifinal match against West Side in three straight (15-3, 15-13 and 15-7). This semifinal win actually earned Bronte Beach their berth in the nationals with the subsequent provincial championship game for hon­ ours only. Bronte Beach rolled through their preliminary round, sweeping all but one of their four two-game matches. They split one match, against Solars Apollo, winning 15-7 and los­ ing 15-9. It was good enough for Bronte to win the preliminary round with a 7-1 record while Solars Apollo finished at 6-2. Bronte Beach won their other preliminary round matches in straight games against Ottawa (15-1,15-9), West Side (15- 8, 15-8) and Cambridge (15-1, 15-2). Coach Burt refused to single out any of his players, employing a well worn but fitting cliche: "they followed the game plan to a tee." While it may have been their first provincial gold medal, the club, oddly enough, does have a national gold medal. It accomplished that when last year's midget team (with many of the same players as this year's juvenile team) won the provincial silver medal (losing the gold medal match to Solars Apollo), which still earned them a berth to the nation­ als. Bronte Beach will actually not enjoy a very good seeding at the nationals because the ranking is based on last year's results and the Bronte Beach juvenile team finished near the bottom. That's even more significant in that the first game deter­ mines whether a team goes to the A or B flight, and Bronte Beach will be matched up against a highly ranked team. This particular Bronte Beach team has two Oakville play­ ers, Robin Mirier and Jeff Moorman who are in grade 12 and grade 11, respectively, at Oakville Trafalgar High School. Coach Burt said the three-a-week practices will continue in earnest up to the nationals. He also put out a grateful word of thanks to the town of Oakville parks and rec department whose provision of facil­ ities has been essential for the club's continued growth and success. Bronte Beach's Joey Martins puts the ball in play in the Ontario provincial juvenile volleyball championships. Martins is a 16-year-old, Grade 11 Notre Dame student from Burlington. Pho to by Kaz N ovak/TorStar N etw ork House league team wins atom A tourney in Halifax P H ILTH Y 'S S P O T LIG H T : the Red Lobster Vikings from the atom red house league won the recent Halifax tourney. BACK ROW: Andrew Yeh, Eric Von Hagen, Chris Macsai, Ryan Weir, Jeff Hayward, Jamie March. MIDDLE ROW: Trevor Shannon, Michael Lamantia, Justin Morrison, Jeff Sebben, Brendan Moore and Dustin Janicki. FRONT ROW: Andrew Killip and Matt Sulyma. COACHES: Mark Moro, Gary Staats and Tom Sulyma. - Philthy's Spotlight Teams receive a $50 gift certificate The Red Lobster Vikings from the Minor Oaks Hockey Association atom red house league joined 240 teams from Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes and the U.S. in the 22nd annual International Minor Hockey Tournament in Halifax earlier this month. As the only house league team in the division, the Vikings competed against 29 other atom A rep teams. The first game of the tournament was against the top team from Bedford, N.S. The Vikings blew a 2-0 lead and needed overtime to win the game 3-2. Jamie March went in on a breakaway 51 seconds into overtime and beat the goalie with a low shot to the stick side. The Vikings played two games on day two of the tourney. The first was against a team from Clare which they won quite handily by a score of 8-1. Defenceman, Justin Morrison, moved up to forward for much of the game and had a great two-goal performance, while Dustin Janicki scored his second hat-trick of the season. The second game of the day was against the host Dartmouth Whalers who were playing their first game of the day. Oakville's Chris Macsai scored a critical goal in the extremely close game and the Vikings hung on to beat the Whalers 3- 0 by popping an empty net insurance goal with only seconds remaining. Andrew Yeh was named the game MVP for his solid defensive play. The strong play continued in the cru­ cial preliminary round finale with the Vikings defeating Cole Harbour 5-1. Enjoying two-point games were Trevor Shannon, Mike Lamantia and Eric Von Hagan. That sent Oakville onto the semifi­ nals against a team from Sackville, N.B. who were the reigning champions from 1998 and considered a favourite to repeat as gold medal champions. The Vikings got off to a slow start and cou­ pled with a few untimely penalties, found themselves trailing the New Brunswick team 2-0 more than halfway into the game. But the Oakville team prevailed. Jamie March pulled the team to within one goal late in the second period and with just under two minutes left in the game, Andy Killip picked up a rebound from Brendan Moore and sent a shot high into the net over the sprawled Sackville goaltender to send the game into overtime. Off the opening faceoff in the 3-on-3 overtime, Jamie March took the puck around the oppos­ ing centre, skated by the defenceman and went in on a breakaway. The Sackville goaltender made a great save, but Jeff Sebben was there to put away the rebound just 9 seconds into over­ time, allowing the Vikings to advance to the finals against Baddeck. The team from Baddeck was recent­ ly crowned the Nova Scotia champions in their league play. They had a 10-year- old on the team whose play was rumoured to be outstanding. And it was. But Oakville shut down the crafty star. He rarely got loose and when he did, goalie Matt Sulyma rose to the occasion. Defencemen Ryan Weir and Jeff Hayward had outstanding efforts as the team beat Baddeck 4-0 to take the championship and the gold medals. Matt Sulyma was named the team MVP, a well deserved honour. The Oakville team was given a championship banner and jackets which they wore proudly. It was the perfect end to a great season for the Vikings. The tournament win capped off a 16- game unbeaten streak for the Vikings, during which they had 13 wins and 3 ties. Over the course of the year, the Vikings posted a record of 43 wins, 7 losses and 6 ties. The Halifax experi­ ence and the entire year is something that the boys will remember for years to come.