Walkerton Capitals drop weekend contests, head into pre-Christmas break

WALKERTON — The Walkerton Capitals have no games scheduled until Friday, December 23, when they host Mitchell for a 7:30 p.m. game. After that, the Caps won’t play until after Christmas when they come to Hanover for an 8pm game on Friday, December 30th.

Last weekend, the Caps faced off against both the bottom and top teams in the division and lost both. Friday night’s home game against Goderich ended in an 8-5 defeat, and Saturday’s game in Mount Forest ended 5-2.

The game against Goderich started with an exciting first third. The Flyers scored first on the power play, Brett Harrogate ahead of Iain MacIsaac and Jack Stecho. The Caps leveled the score with a power play goal of their own, Jett Morningstar’s Graham Gateman and Kevin Parrott. Later in the period, the Flyers scored again, Owen Shore’s Riley Kuepfer, but the Caps responded seconds later, Owen Troyer’s Ethan Kerr and Keegan Fischer.

The Flyers took a three-goal lead in a second half full of penalties – Riley Good’s Carson Stutzman and Ayden Hakkers, Kuepfer on the power play from Stecho and Stutzman unassisted. They held the three-goal lead until the end of the game.

Still, there was plenty of excitement for the fans. In the third period, Walkerton came out strong, scoring Perrott’s Kyle Durrer in under two minutes. The Flyers came back with Harrogate’s second of the night on assists from Mitchell Hodges and Brett Reesor. Then Walkerton’s gateman scored his second en route to a hat-trick thanks to assists from Sam Shakes and Morningstar. Hakkers, outnumbered, scored for Goderich without outside help to make it 7:4. Gateman scored his hat trick three minutes later, with assists for Trevor Fischer and shakes. But Goderich wasn’t finished yet. Tyson Rintoul made it 8-5 with assists from Jeff Fritzley and Kuepfer seconds from time.

The next day’s game in Mount Forest was another tough game for the Caps, although Walkerton scored shakes from Gateman and JJ Lavigne just seconds into the game. Then Walkerton ran into some penalty problems and the Patriots scored on the power play, Charlie Mckenzie’s Brody LeBlanc and Caleb Cribbin. The Patriots had their own penalty problems but were able to score despite Walkerton’s man advantage, Austin Griffin’s Bryan Richardson and Jordan Leitch – the first of two shorthanded goals.

The Caps split on the power play in the second third, Durrer from Owen Tichbourne and Elliott McCarey. The rest of the period was goalless.

The Patriots came out strong in the third half, scoring two quick goals – LeBlanc on Dylan Szymanowski’s power play and the same two players for another, this time short-handed. The two did it again before the game ended; This time it was LeBlanc’s Szymanowski and Adam Murray. Final score was 5-2 for Mount Forest.

Mount Forest leads the division with 35 points, followed by the Mitchell Hawks with 32. The Wingham Ironmen are third with 31, two points ahead of fourth-place Hanover Barons with 29. The Kincardine Bulldogs have 21, Walkerton has eight and Goderich has four points .