First Seeds Move On; CUFLA Will Have New Champion

Peterborough, Ontario - with byes to the semifinals, both McGill and Western began their quest for the Baggataway Cup today. In the first semifinal of the day, McGill struck first when Alex Rohrbach, CUFLA’s rookie of the year in 2011, scored on the first shot of the game at 19:23 of the first quarter. While McGill held possession for the majority of the first quarter, the score at the end of 20 minutes was 2-2, thanks in large part to Guelph’s game MVP defensemen Jon Harnett. Guelph held much of the possession in the second, but McGill was able to capitalize on opportunities and the score at the half was 5-4 for McGill. Guelph won the third quarter, outscoring McGill 3-0 for a score of 7-5 for Guelph going into the fourth quarter. With two minutes to go, it looked as though Guelph had the game. However, McGill pressed, and scored a goal with 1:20 left, and another 20 second later to tie the game at 8’s, with 1 minute remaining. Looking like the game was destined for overtime, game MVP Brandon McLean took possession behind the Guelph net and patiently waited for the clock to wind down before scoring the game winning goal with 4 seconds left - and sending McGill to the championship game.

The second game of the day was the matchup between Western and Brock. What was expected to be a highly offensive game, was actually a defensive chess match- with game MVP’s from each team being defencemen (Eric Pitre from Western and Brad Baker from Brock). Both teams played patient offense and goaltending was outstanding on both ends. All Canadian, Jordan Weedmark opened the scoring for Brock 3 minutes into the game. Western responded with 2 minutes left in the quarter to tie the game. Dylan Ham scored the only goal of the second quarter on a power play with a laser from a tight angle to put Western up 2-1 at the half. Brock rallied in the third quarter with 2 goals, with both Jordan Weedmark and Greg Davidson scoring at even strength. Ryan McCrory tied the game for Western in the fourth quarter, assisted from Dylan Ham to force the game to overtime. The first quarter of overtime had no goals as defence were stingy on both side –not allowing either team to get a shot on net. The game winner came with 30 seconds to go in the final minutes of overtime; the scorer was Ryan McCrory of Western. Brock could not tie the game with the remaining time in overtime. Western advances to the Championship game to face McGill tomorrow at 1pm at Justin Chiu Stadium at Trent University.