Corvairs win Conference Championship
The St. Catharines Falcons’ dreams of a contending for a Sutherland Cup are hanging by a thread.
The Caledonia Corvairs topped the Falcons 4-3 Wednesday night at the Haldimand Centre in Caledonia to take the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League, Golden Horseshoe Conference best-of-seven championship final 4-1.
The Corvairs now advance to the Sutherland Cup semifinals while the Falcons will have to wait another day to learn their fate.
The Falcons can still advance as the wild card team should Leamington defeat Chatham in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals Thursday night. The Falcons and Maroons would both be 9-4 but the Falcons would get the wild card based on a better goals for differential.
The Falcons went through the same thing last year when they needed London to knock off Cambridge to remain alive.
“I remember exactly where I was last year, sitting on my couch watching the updates, and its not fun having your fate in someone else’s hands,” Falcons winger Yanni Rallis said. “You just have to hope the hockey gods give us another chance here at the Sutherland Cup.”
Falcons coach/general manager Frank Girhiny agreed it’s not the best position to be in, but at least there is a chance.
“It didn’t work out well last year,” Girhiny said. “It’s frustrating, but hopefully we’ll get a chance at these guys again because you’re seeing two of the best teams in the OHA playing.”
The Falcons nearly pulled off a miracle comeback after falling behind 4-1 early in the third.
Rallis made it 4-2 at 12:24 and then less than a minute later Tommy Barszcz brought St. Catharines to within one at 4-3.
The Falcons then put forth a furious rally but couldn’t beat Caledonia goaltender Colin Furlong, who shut the door and was named playoff most valuable player.
Rallis said the Falcons never gave up hope.
“Everyone was playing with desperation,” Rallis said. “Give credit to the whole team who showed a lot of resiliency at the end. It came down to one more bounce, but it didn’t go our way.
“Everyone stepped up and took it one goal at a time.”
The Falcons turned in a solid enough effort for most of the opening period but the Corvairs netted the lone goal when Cody Brown jumped on a giveaway and appeared to fool Knick Dawe with a low shot late in the period.
Todd Ratchford put the Corvairs up 2-0 with an early goal in the second period from the point that found the top corner after deflecting off the shield of Dillan Walker.
Caledonia made it 3-0 with a power-play goal just 19 seconds into the third before captain Kyle Woodhouse finally got the Falcons on the board a few minutes later.
However, the Corvairs quickly responded with a goal by Jeff Malott to restore Caledonia’s three-goal lead before Rallis started the comeback.
“At the end of the day, we were down 4-1 but our team persevered,” Girhiny said. “Guys like Aaron Taylor and Tommy (Barszcz) talked about playing to the buzzer and we did.
“We battled through a real good hockey team and came up just short.”
Falcons facts: Tyler Jackson, Jacob Parisotto, Zach Bishop and Tyler Hildebrandt did not dress for the Falcons . . . Matt Quilty, Chance MacDonald and Greg Christmas were scratched for the Corvairs.
bill.potrecz@sunmedia.ca
