The Highland Storm U18 A&W Haliburton team hit the ice in Omemee against the Kawartha Coyotes Feb. 15 for game two of their round-robin playoff showdown.
After a hard-fought 2-1 win against the Sturgeon Lake Thunder White team earlier in the week, the group was certain they could maintain the high-energy, disciplined play they started their playoff run with, if they continued to work together as a team.
They knew that coming into the playoffs with a substantially shorter bench than the regular season would be no easy feat, but they were up for the challenge.
Within the first minute of play, Gideon Borgdorff opened the scoring, letting the Coyotes know we came with a job to do. Kawartha reminded us they weren’t going to make it easy by tying the game half-way through the first. Thirteen seconds later, Eric Mueller took a pass from Logan Reid to score his first of the game, putting the Storm back in the lead. Before the end of the first period, Mueller broke away and scored his second on a power play, followed by team captain, Austin Latanville, on a pass from Jaxen Casey, reinforcing this team’s drive to want to get that “W”. Highland Storm ended the period at 4-1, knowing there was still lots of game left to be played.
Kawartha battled back in the second, scoring a few minutes in, making it 4-2. The Storm’s defence was challenged, but some smart plays by Ethan DeCarlo and some big saves by goalie, Landyn Simms, helped the Storm keep their lead. Despite all their efforts, Kawartha was able to slip one past Simms to shorten the lead to 4-3. The Storm wasn’t done though. Taylor Mulock’s heads-up play and passing helped to generate several scoring opportunities. Before it was over, DeCarlo found Borgdorff’s stick again, helping him score his second goal of the game, on another power play, increasing the lead to 5-3. A huge backcheck from Ethan Rowe before the end of the second period helped to eliminate another scoring chance for Kawartha.
The Storm came into the third period knowing they needed to keep out of the box if they were going to maintain their lead. Luke Taylor skated hard to get into position, but Kawartha’s defence wasn’t giving anything up. Brady Hamilton’s drive to the net with the puck drew a penalty for Kawartha and ignited another spark for the Storm team to not let up. Layne Robinson helped along the boards with his give-and-go playmaking abilities, getting the puck into position for lots of scoring chances for the Storm to challenge Kawartha’s goalie during the final period. The defensive duo of Reid and Mason Latanville worked together to eliminate as many scoring chances as possible, giving Simms and his team the win.
The team will play their first home playoff game Feb. 24 at 8:30 p.m. in Minden
