Kipfer and Wildfong win Bronze in Aurora, Warriors produce mixed results

As they prepared for their week of important contests, the Stratford Hunter Steel Warriors knew their goal of having home-ice advantage was still within their sights, and two members of the team participated in the MacPherson Tournament at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora.

Quinn Kipfer and Max Wildfong were part of the Team GOHL as they competed in the multi-day competition from Jan. 30 through Feb.1.

With Kipfer being the captain of Team GOHL, they were placed in the Meagher group during the round robin. The team finished with a 2-1 record, with Kipfer earning game MVP honours in the 2-1 win over Culver Academics in the final game of the preliminary round. After losing the semi-finals to host St. Andrews College Saints, Team GOHL won the bronze medal after beating the Pittsburgh Jr. Penguins 4-3.

Kipfer and Wildfong shared their experience in the tournament.

“It was a huge honour to be named the leader of a group of so many talented players. It was good to showcase my leadership on the stage like that, and it was good to have some success with the skilled guys we have, and to come home with the bronze medal we're pretty happy with,” Kipfer said.

“The league has a lot of young, skilled guys and it's good that they're able to go to a tournament like this to put all those guys together and showcase what the league has and how they can develop players into the next level.”

“It was awesome. An excellent group. It was fun meeting the new guys, and we had a hard-working team. It was fun to compete with,” Wildfong said. “It was a great showcase, and great to showcase my skills with the guys.”

Coming into the week, the Warriors sit in fifth place with one point behind the London Nationals for fourth in the very tight Western Conference, but have no more than four games in hand over the top four teams in the conference.

McQuen Haylock, Dax Vader and head coach Dave Williams know how vital the points are as they head into the final month of the regular season.

“Yeah, it feels like every game's a big game, with the parity and everybody trying to chase teams that are in front of them and keep teams behind them. But there's no doubt, Wednesday's a big game against London. You know, we're right there with each other. We've got a few games in hand. So again, we must look after what we can,” Williams said.

“So, it's an opportunity for us to try and steal two points from them and keep those games in hand. With respect to Friday, we've had some pretty competitive games against Komoka so far this year. We talk a lot about how we see teams' best games in here on a Friday night, it's such a special place to play so that I would expect nothing less than a good effort from Komoka.”

“Yeah, it's obviously going to be a pretty big, tiring week. But we had a pretty, pretty good state today, systematically focused for Wednesday's game. I think all good for that,” Vader said.

“We just keep playing how we're playing. We've been stringing together some excellent games, and we beat most of the top teams, and we just got to catch up on our games, and I think we'll be just right up there with them.”

“I'm excited. We got three big games coming up. I think it's big to beat London. I think we got some business we need to handle because they beat us up once or twice. But I think it's good because there's a lot of competition, a lot of games coming off. We got a weekend off, so it's good to get back and have a lot of games and room to get a lot of points,” Haylock said.

“I think we have to really narrow down the details and make sure we're doing everything right, because a lot of the points in that matter going into the playoffs, you want to be in private rankings. I think it's big that we win the games that matter, because the rankings are so close in points, and I think it's big that we need to come out of going into the playoffs on a higher rank than everyone else.”

Stratford travelled to the Western Fair Sports Complex in London for their key matchup with the Nationals in a battle for the fourth spot in the conference.

London got on the board with 5:05 to go in the first period off the shot that went through a screen in front of Stratford netminder Noah Bender for the opening goal. Stratford responded 90 seconds later on the powerplay as the shot by Aaron Green found the way past the Nationals' netminder for the game-tying goal.

Midway through the second period, the Nationals retook the lead and kept the one-goal lead heading into the third period. In the final frame, London extended their lead 2:45 into the period, but the Warriors responded with a goal from Drew Hodge on a six-on-five advantage with 1:14 left to cut the deficit to 3-2.

Stratford continued to push for the equalizer with the extra attacker but was unable to capitalize in the game’s closing seconds.

Bender had a strong performance in net for the Warriors in the loss as he made 32 saves out of 35 shots he faced.

Williams praised the team’s performance against London, but credited the performance by the London netminder as the reason for the outcome.

“I mean, there are parts of our game that I liked. I thought. I thought some of the scoring opportunities we generated were pretty well turned away by their goaltender. But, you know, we got to find a way to generate and score goals five on five,” Williams said.

“Get that one on the power play that gets us right back to the game. We just seem to have some tough luck around in that five-on-five, scoring goals. And I think a little bit on us, but I think also, you know, you got to give their goalie credit. We thought he had an excellent game.”

The Warriors hosted the Komoka Kings at the William Allman Memorial Arena on Jan. 30, and it marked the in-season debuts of Colten Brenzil from Mitchell Hawks of the PJHL and Cody Billings of the Kitchener Jr. Rangers AAA U18.

In his second-ever game in the GOHL, Brenzil scored his first career goal halfway through the opening period from Vader and Jonas Schmidt to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead. With 3:06 remaining in the period, Dominic Marshall scored his 10th of the season from Rhyse Brown and Grady Murphy to put the Warriors ahead 2-0.

The Warriors continued their goal-scoring barrage in the second period when Lucas Minard scored his 12th of the season 7:48 into the period. It was Minard’s first goal since Nov. 15 against Caledonia.

Colin Slattery scored his ninth of the season on the powerplay from Hodge and Green at the midway mark of the period to make it 4-0 for the home side before Komoka scored late in the period to make it 4-1 heading into the third period.

Midway through the final frame, Jaxson Broda notched his second of the season from Schmidt and Joseph Curtin to seal the win with the final score of 5-1.

Brenzil was pleased with scoring his first goal and told the Times his goal for the remainder of the season.

“It feels amazing. Definitely didn't expect it for sure, but felt really nice going in,” Brenzil said.

“Definitely, the focus is on the playoffs. With Mitchell, it's coming up soon, and try to go pretty far in the playoffs with them, so that's my main focus right now, and just working hard every practice since every game, trying to get better.”

Billings expressed what it means to be part of the Warriors and said he wants to work on his game to earn more opportunities with the team in the future.

“Definitely an honour. It was a great game to play against. The pace is faster than I'm used to, so I was glad I was able to contribute and turn that way,” Billings said.

“Towards the end of the season, I'm still looking to continue to develop, and hopefully next year I can have some more opportunities for myself at Stratford, possibly being one of them, so it should be good to continue.”

Assistant coach Mike Knechtel commended the performances from the team, specifically Brenzil and Billings.

“Yeah, I thought it was a good team effort tonight. Our lineup was a little short, and we had some call-ups who did an excellent job for us. So, I thought we played well tonight,” Knechtel said.

“They gave us some good minutes tonight, Cody on the back end and Colten up front. I thought they did an excellent job for us. That was a big goal for us to start the game off. So, it was awesome.”

The Warriors travelled to Elmira for the first time this season against the Sugar Kings at the Dan Snyder Memorial Arena on Feb. 1.

Elmira took a 2-0 lead with both goals coming in a span of over four minutes apart in the first period.

Slattery scored his 10th of the season from Coen Galbraith and Haden Frayne at the 5:12 mark to cut the Elmira lead to 2-1. Less than two minutes later, the Sugar Kings restored their two-goal lead, but a last-minute goal from Haylock, his third goal of the season, from Lucas Minard and Cruz Ferguson, put the visitors within striking distance through 40 minutes.

After Stratford failed to get the equalizer early in the period, Elmira pulled away with a pair of goals in under three minutes. With the loss, the Warriors fell to 24-9-2-2 in the season.

Stratford netminder Noah Bender stopped 30 of 35 shots in the losing effort.

Head coach Dave Williams says the team’s overall performance wasn’t on par with that of one of the league’s top teams.

“I think there are some things in the game that we like. We couldn't seem to find a couple more goals there. You know, in the margin of error, you get a team like them. We have two rimmed out pucks that we don't get to, one off the base, which makes a difference in the game,” Williams said.

“I thought we did some good things. We couldn't seem to find that equalizer, and sometimes you find that the time goal you play a little bit differently, rather than playing from behind.”

Stratford is set to open their three-game homestand with two pivotal contests at the Allman Arena this coming weekend.

The Warriors host the Chatham Maroons on Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m., followed by the renewal of the Battle of Highway 7 with the St. Marys Lincolns on Feb. 8 at 4:30 p.m.