Beaver Staff
The Napanee Peewee BB Stars topped the St. Mary’s Rock 3-2 on the road in Sunday’s Game 4 of the OMHA championship, winning the series 3-1.
Their win made them the first Stars peewee team to bring home an a provincial title in 33 years.
“It’s been a great season, right from the start,” Stars coach Fred Sutcliffe said following Sunday’s win. “They’re a great bunch of kids.”
The Stars would require one extra game to close out the series following a 6-1 loss on Saturday, their first loss of the season.
“We didn’t really show up for that one,” Sutcliffe said of Saturday’s loss. “We had a long car ride (to St. Mary’s) and had car legs and all that stuff. On Sunday it was a totally different team. We got back to our routine and how we play the game.”
The Stars proved they ‘rock’ too, as they came to play on Sunday edging their opponents 3-2.
They took a 2-0 lead on goals by Carter McKee and Cal Uens in the first. Spencer Cranley earned an assist on McKee’s tally. The Rock scored with 4:09 left in the second period, but Uens got the winner 50 seconds later set up by McKee and Will Myers. St Mary’s completed the scoring midway in the third, while goalie Sam Rickard made key stops late in the game to ensure the victory.
Napanee entered the weekend needing just one win to close out the series after winning Game 1 and 2 on home ice the previous weekend. Had they been unable to get the job done this weekend, they did have home ice for Game 5 if needed.
“Everybody said it would have been nice to win it at home, but to go up there and win it was as special as anything,” said Sutcliffe. “We didn’t want to have that Game 5. It would have been nice if it was at home, but it would have been a long week waiting for the game to get here.”
Along with ending a 33 year drought for Napanee’s peewee team, this year’s Stars team is just the second peewee club since the Gormac Heating Peewee Bs, vintage 1984-1985, to win a provincial title in the last 50 years. The 2018 peewees set a new standard of excellence, producing a regular season record of 22-0-0 and a playoff record of 13-1-1. They swept Stirling and Prince Edward County, defeated Collingwood with three wins and a tie and lost their only playoff game on Saturday before taking the final series three games to one.
The championship was a fitting end to their perfect season.
“We put a lot of time and effort into it so we didn’t want to let (the title) slip away,” said Sutcliffe. “It was a great effort from everybody.”
Throughout the year, they got lots of offense from Uens, Cranley, McKee, and Luc Amat, as well as Daniel Chase, Ty Kemp, Jacob Wood, Karter Vermilyea, and Zered Haller. Defensive stalwarts Ethan Sutcliffe, Will Myers, Gavin Brooks, Lukas Jarmin were tough to get by, along with Owen Maracle. Goalies Rickard and Holden Breault backstopped the defense with competent work. The coach also credited the rest of his staff, Tyler Longo, Matt Jarmin and manager Rodney Myers for making it all possible.
Most of the group will be eligible to move up to the bantam level next year, while three can return for a second year of peewee.
A banner raising ceremony is expected to take place next fall at the SPC.