Kincardine Kinuck’s - Montgomery Ford Midget “C” girls team start the playoff provincial play-down’s with a 3 game weekend and a very short bench of 11 skaters and our goalie Amber Howald . The weather was at least good to travel this weekend as the team started this series up in Wiarton Friday night against likely a top ranked team, Bruce Peninsula Predators! The weather was at least good to travel this weekend despite hold cold it was. With a short bench there was no trouble for the players to keep warm and as Bruce Peninsula seemed to remember our game earlier in the season, wanted to even things up as the took it hard to Kincardine gaining a 2-1 lead after 2 periods.
In the 3rd period , we slowed down with energy from the short bench and Bruce Peninsula gained speed beating Kincardine 5-1 picking up 3 more goals in the 3rd giving Bruce Peninsula the 2 points ! Each game played is 2 points for a win, 1 for a tie, out of 8 game series, possible 16 points could be earned. The top 3 of 9 teams from this group or Midget “C” girls from Region V will advance to All Ontario playdown’s in Mississauga in April.
On Saturday night at the D/C , West Grey Wildcats “C” team arrived for our 1st match up of the season with these girls ! Well it was a good game, yet with the shorter bench and Kincardine having shortage of Defensman , Christen Bell and Kelsey Padfield now have assumed these positions with out choice and what a good job for 1st time on defense. Both teams kept it tied up, 1-1, then the 2nd period 2-2 game, but Kincardine came to life in the 3rd period to take a 3-2 lead to win and pick up their 1st 2 points ! Megan Stewart-Kemp gets her 1st hatrick this season !
On Sunday another trip north to Chatsworth to play TCDMHA Rebels “C” team , not having played this team since back in November , and with the short bench showed concern going in on this game. With 3 players a little behind on arriving the refs made up start with 8 skaters without no grace time allowed , what ever I guess ? Good news though was the 3 musketeers finally arrived the team now were ready for this playoff game and that Kincardine was charged up it seemed , scoring a 1st goal in the 1st period by Tegan Moore. The battles just got more intense in the 2nd period , penalty’s started to birth allowing our team a power play and Sadie Battler took full advantage to give us a 2 goal lead into the 3rd period. Then with just under 5 minutes left on the clock all of a sudden the TCDMHA team applied heavy pressure , which I wondered why and the goalie was pulled and this seemed to work for them almost scoring a few times, but Amber Howald seemed to have her game maintaining the shut-out and Rachel Whitney was able to get the open net goal with 34 seconds left for a 3-0 victory and another 2 points for
Kincardine !! Having 5 games left to complete in next 3 weeks and off to the Walter Gretzkey girls tournament this up coming weekend and 2 games yet to fit in this week. Keep up the good work Montgomery Ford midget girls !
Gord Kemp Coach