Booth's Harbour bantams battle to end
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JJ Fashing wasn’t looking forward to school, Monday.
“It’s going to suck,” said the Langton Booth’s Harbour Bantam Sunday afternoon in the Langton Arena following a 7-3 OMHA DD series-clinching victory by visiting Port Dover.
Losing is no one’s favourite thing. Losing to schoolmates and Simcoe Holy Trinity classmates doesn’t make it any better.
“It was very physical and knowing the kids and stuff, it just put a lot on the line,” said Fashing.
If there was a positive to the Dover sweep, it lay in the fact the Booth’s Harbour bantams hadn’t handed it to their familiar rivals.
“We tried, we tried and even when we were down, we kept on talking positive,” said Fashing.
Sunday’s first period ended square at three, as Brendan DeOrwin (unassisted) and Michael Smithson (from Fashing and Kyle Ruzniak) scored 55 seconds apart, beginning with 3:27 to play in the frame. Brendan DeLeebeck scored Langton’s first goal of the game at its 3:36 mark, tying the score at one at the time.
The visitors’ Brody McKnight scored what would stand as the game-winner at the 4:34 mark of the (15-minute) second period. A three-goal burst beginning with 35 seconds to play in that frame, and continuing 44 and 59 seconds into the third, respectively, effective decided an issue which featured 14 minor penalties (nine to Langton, five for Dover) through the final 14 minutes.
“Play hard and play with your heart and try not to get penalties – but that didn’t happen that game,” summed up Smithson, who gave a few hits, took a few, and throughout, played much larger than his official 105 pounds.
“That’s all heart,” credited coach Derek DeBruyn.
Port Dover had opened the six-point series with a 5-1 victory, easing ahead by four points with an 8-0 shutout in game two.
“We played well, we played well all series,” said DeBruyn, noting the Booth’s bantams, already a short-staffed squad, were short two players in game one and one each through two and three due to injury.
The squad wasn’t short on effort, however said the coach, more-than-satisfied with his players play, if preferring a different result.
“I’d say they played with a lot of heart, showed a lot of character and never gave up,” he concluded. “They played right through.”