The Lambton Shores Predators Atom Rep team travelled to Schomberg on the weekend to play in the Red and White tournament and came away as "A" Champions.
The Preds opened the tourney Friday against the Powassan Hawks and after a solid effort, came away with a 7-1 victory. Saturday's game was against the hometown Schomberg Red Wings, who brought an 11-0 regular season record into the tournament. Despite playing a very talented team in a hostile environment, not to mention a ref who was apparently a huge Red Wings supporter, the Preds came away with a hard fought 2-1 victory. Ty Wright lost his shutout bid with less than 2 minutes to go for the second straight game and 4th time this season but was stellar in the pipes.
Saturday night's win set up the Preds for Sunday's morning game with the Brighton Braves , a win or tie would send them to the "A" Final and a loss would mean the "B" final. The Preds opened the scoring early in the first period and the Braves battled back with a late tally to tie it up after one period. The second period saw the Preds press hard and take the play to the Braves but seemed to be intimidated by the large Braves goalie and could not find the net. The Braves scored late in the second to take 2-1 lead. The Preds responded in the third after killing off a 4 minute penalty late in the game and coming up with their own late game heroics, tying the game with 2 minutes to go and sending them off to the A finals.
In the final game the Preds were up against the Parry Sound Shamrocks. After a scoreless first period the Shamrocks opened the scoring midway through the second but the Preds dug deep and responded with two late second period goals to take the lead into the third. The Preds put the pedal to the floor for the third and scored 17 seconds into the period and got 2 goals 13 seconds apart four minutes later to take the wind out of the Shamrock sails and cruised to victory. Final score 6-2 Preds.
Austin Harper was named tournament MVP. The teams recipe for success was hard work and competing on every shift, combined with great goaltending, strong defence and timely scoring and it resulted in a great victory in a highly competitive 8 team tournament against some very strong teams from across Ontario.
Great job Preds, you represented Lambton Shores well, on and off the ice!