NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat U13AA Hounds net minder Blade Schreiner makes one of his 33 saves in the 7-5, South division title win over the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Sunday at the Hockey Hounds arena.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat U13AA Hounds completed part two of their four-part plan for an all-time season.
The Hounds overcame an early two-goal deficit Sunday evening, beating the Lethbridge Hurricanes 7-5 to win the South Division title and put them closer to the season-long goal of a provincial title.
“This team just rises to occasion,” head coach Tanner Barton said. “If we have a big game coming, they bring their game. The few times we’ve been down in the game, we’ve never given up, we’ve always come back. About a month ago, we were down 4-1 to these guys and we’re just resilient and ended up getting the W.”
The Hounds swept all six games of the regional tournament held in Medicine Hat over the weekend, extending their win streak to 32 games, giving them a 38-2 record on the year.
“This is great,” forward Teddy Maser said. “The boys were buzzing all around.”
The Hounds were led in the final game against Lethbridge by forward Weston Haslbeck, he tallied four goals with an assist. Beckam Sprunger had a goal and four assists and both Diesel Bishop and Fischer Sprunger had a goal.
Blade Schreiner finished with 33 saves in the win. The Hounds were without forward Raylan Johnson for the last four games of the weekend. He was the Hounds’ leading goal scorer with 54 goals and had the third-highest point total on the team with 101 in 34 regular season games.
Barton says they’ve had players rise up when needed all season, that ability on display Sunday.
“We didn’t play our best the whole tournament, and we brought it tonight missing one of our best players,” Barton said. “We had guys step up and it’s not only a team win, it’s an organization win. We brought in affiliate players, they played a role, they gave us some good shifts and some good minutes to take some pressure off of our other guys.”
The Hounds earned a spot in the finals with a 4-3 win over the Taber Golden Suns earlier in the day. Bishop had a goal and two assists in that win, Haysen Biech had a goal and an assist as well. Both Maser and Hudson Gilchrist scored, Dawson Ressler made 24 saves.
With the weekend wins, the Hounds will face the Red Deer Chiefs in the South conference championship, competing in a best-of-three series for a spot in provincials.
That series starts Thursday at the Hounds arena at 5:15 p.m. They’ll head to Red Deer on Saturday and if needed, will host the Chiefs on Sunday. As the Hounds look to carry momentum from two, regular season wins over the Chiefs. Barton says they’ll approach the series as a clean slate, looking to continue on with the plan they’ve followed since day one.
“We have home ice, we get two games in Medicine Hat but basically just same message us tonight, lay everything out on the line,” Barton said. “There’s nothing left to play for so we might as well lay it all out there.”
