Westlock’s Pee Wee Warriors dug deep until the bitter end Sunday, losing 3-1 to Airdrie in the provincial ‘B’ championship finals in Drayton Valley.
The club was tremendous all weekend long and coach Nelson Jespersen said it was the boys’ hard work and team spirit that put them into the gold-medal game. The loss in the final was the club’s only defeat at the eight-team tournament that featured clubs from High Prairie, New Sarepta and Lethbridge.
“We were just on the wrong side of the scoresheet,” said Jespersen minutes after the final buzzer.
“Hockey is a game of chances and they buried theirs when they had them. We just didn’t bury ours and we ran out of time.”
The Warriors went into the weekend optimistic as the boys knew they had to stay focused.
“For us we just had to play like we could,” Jespersen said.
“In a tournament, or game, players will try and do too much. In our case we just had to play within our game and take care of our own positions. We’re a deeper team as long as we play as a team.”
Airdrie opened the final with a goal at 12:50 of the first period, but Westlock was able to fight back in the second with a marker from Zach Basisty. Airdrie followed that up with what proved to be the championship winner at 17:30 of the second.
“Even though we came up a bit short, we’re very proud of our boys,” Jespersen continued. “I wouldn’t trade this team for the world. We got to where we wanted to be.”
Leading up to the final the Warriors were untouchable.
In the Sunday-morning semifinal versus Kitscoty the club overcame a 1-0 deficit with a pair of goals in the last five minutes of play.
“We ended up running into a smaller quick team that were really relentless. But in the third we started to take the game over. We had lots of pressure and were finally rewarded for our efforts.”
In the round robin the Warriors rolled to three-straight wins, blanking New Sarepta 8-0, shelling Lethbridge 8-1 then edging Thorsby 2-1.
With the provincials in the books they’ll now focus on a Tier 2 1660 Hockey League title.
“Our season’s definitely not over as we’re going to play for the league championship next weekend. We’re going to regroup and take it from there.”
