The Yorkton Midget 'A' Manos Terriers came up just one win short of knocking off the defending Major Hockey League Midget 'A' division champion Foam Lake Flyers on Monday night in Foam Lake.
Instead, the Flyers successfully defended their 2012-13 championship by handing Yorkton a tough 8-3 loss in Game Three of the best-of-three series (Foam Lake won game one 4-1 while Yorkton triumphed in game two 5-1).
Yorkton got goals from Tyrell Newcombe, Justin Guy and Riley Cmoc, however the effort was just not enough as a pair of Foam Lake hat tricks, one each by Brett Zadorozniak and Devan Renkas, as well as single markers by Jacob Farrell and Drew Helgason ultimately proved to be the downfall of the third ranked Yorkton club.
Carter Park shouldered the loss for the Terriers stopping 19 of 26 shots while Justan Stocker picked up the win for the Flyers, turning aside 19 of 22 Yorkton shots.
After the game, Manos Terriers head coach Grant Ottenbreit felt that his team of hard workers simply could not find one more rabbit despite digging down d eep into the hat during game three in Foam Lake. "A team can only pull so many rabbits out of their hat in a year and we pulled out quite a few. We surprised people all year long," said an obviously proud Ottenbreit, continuing, "I think we ended up trailing in all of our series except the last one for the Provincials and even then we were trailing in the final game before winning it in double overtime.
"It's just a testament to the hard work that these guys have. They never quit even when they were down. There are teams with more skill than us, probably teams that are better looking than us but I don't know if there are teams that work harder than us and I don't know if there is a team that I could be more proud of to be honest."
Provincial title
While league supremacy ultimately went to the Flyers, Provincial success found its way to the Yorkton Midget Manos Terriers in the form of a 3-2 two game total goal series victory over the Unity Lazers.
Yorkton won game one in Yorkton 1-0, meaning the Manos Terriers took a one goal lead into game two in Unity.
The hometown Lazers opened the scoring very early on in game two to tie the series up when Justin Gerein beat Terrier netminder Dawson Stefanyshyn just 23 seconds into the game.
A second Unity goal midway through the second period, this time by Trace Sperle, made it 2-0 for Unity.
Try as they might the Terriers just could not solve Derek Sutherland for the first 55 minutes of the game.
However a Jake Perpeluk goal with 4:53 remaining in the period cut the Unity game lead in half at 2-1, but tied the series at two goals apiece.
The remainder of regulation solved nothing meaning overtime was needed.
The first overtime proved fruitless as both teams defensive corps did not budge, making it seem as if the game would never end.
Luckily for Yorkton, however, it did end. And it did so in favour of the Terriers.
Late in the second overtime stalwart blueliner Tannum Wyonzek intercepted a Lazer clearing attempt and fired a shot on net that was redirected by diminutive forward Riley Cmoc and past Sutherland for the series clinching goal resulting in the Yorkton Manos Terriers knocking off the defending Provincial champions 3-2 to claim their first Midget 'A' Provincial title in team history.
After the game Cmoc said that it was the biggest goal he had ever scored in his career, but what he remembers most is looking at his bench after the puck went in. "I looked back and seen everyone skating over and it was just like "Okay, I guess we just go doggy pile on everyone"," said a laughing Cmoc. "It was just a good time."
