Ponoka’s U16 Storm came to the very edge of completing their season with a full set of medals but it was the luck that turned them down when they lost the gold medal game in a penalty shoot out to Cold Lake at the provincial championship tournament at Three Hills over the weekend.
The tournament started very smoothly for Ponoka boys as they easily had their way past Olds 11-1 on Friday, July 11, Peace River 7-1 the next day and the host team 10-2 on Sunday morning, July 13.
Their confidence was intact and their determination strong to bring the gold medals back home.
It was, however, not meant to be.
Captain Jarret Henderson opened the scoring within 30 seconds of the kick off whistle of the final game. The boys were ecstatic but the opponents, undefeated throughout the season, were not in a mood to quickly give in.
It took them less than 10 minutes to get over the shock of the early Ponoka point and to equalize when they were awarded a penalty. The bigger size and speed, strong man-to-man defense skills and ball control ability of the Cold Lake players were hampering the game plan of Storm and Ponoka boys were finding it a little bit more difficult to pass the ball in their offensive setup than in the previous games.
Cold Lake, on the other hand, had a heavily defense-focused setup seeking scoring opportunities through swift counterattacks, one of which they found before the halftime taking a 2-1 lead.
In the second half, the Storm intensified pressure on the Cold Lake defense and they took shot after shot at the opponents’ net, but it was luck that was not cooperating, including three in second half, Storm’s five shots from outside the 18-yard box was deflected from the cross bar in the course of the whole game.
Two minutes from the end of regulation, Jarret Henderson was once again brought down in the 18-yard box by the Cold Lake defense and the Storm was awarded a free kick, which was converted by a bullet-like shot by Lewis McDowell. That goal took the game to extra time.
This time it was the turn of the Ponoka boys to take the lead and Lewis took another one of his strong shots to bring the scoreboard to a position of 3-2 in favor of the Storm.
But Cold Lake poured cold water on the Storm’s jubilant mood by equalizing again within only a minute by making use of the confusion in front of the Storm net after a corner kick.
Neither of the teams managed to score in the remaining minutes of the extra time and it was left to the penalties to decide the outcome of the game.
When the Cold Lake goalie saved two of Ponoka’s penalties, there was nothing for the Storm other than to settle for the silver medal.
“Don’t go home your heads down,” coach Cameron Horan told his players. “We were the better team on the field,” said head coach Gurjit Sandhu. “Five hits on the crossbar, what else is there to say?” he added.
Sandhu said the main factors for the success of the Storm U16 were the willingness of all players to learn and to get better and their enthusiasm to bring their individual talents to the game. “Most importantly everyone had the mentality that we are going to win every game,” he said.
He predicted that if most of the players continue to play in Ponoka next season, both U18 and U16 teams could repeat this year’s performance or could do even better. “In two years, when this group is together again they can definitely repeat this year’s success, if not more,” he added.
“The improvement was exponential with this group. We always had the individual talent but they didn’t always work too great with each other,” Sandhu said referring to the journey they took until the gold medal game.
“But as the season went on, they grew more confident in each other and just got better and better. It showed in provincials when our ball movement was easily the best out of all the teams, especially in the attacking end,” he said.
“We were unlucky not to get gold, but the boys grew into men this weekend, Cam and I could not be more proud of this group and their accomplishments. It was a dream season and feels kind of surreal that it's over,” he concluded.