The Eckville Senior Eagles’ season came to an end with a devastating 8-4 loss to the Devon Barons on Feb. 9.
The loss came during Game 5 of the first round of North Central Hockey League playoff action.
“We kind of played that whole opening round of playoffs sort of short-handed… at the end of the day I think we just got a little bit worn down and that’s kind of how playoffs go,” said Head Coach Cale Walker, adding Devon had a full team, while the Eagles had a smaller bench.
“I’m not going to make excuses for us because Devon’s got a good team and they really wanted it,” said Walker.
READ MORE: Eckville Sr. Eagles tie series at one apiece
Eckville Senior Eagles soar into Game Five
During the Saturday night game the Eagles didn’t find the back of the net until the second period.
Andrew Bergmann, from Scott Kallis and Ian Munro, opened the middle frame with a goal to make the score 3-1.
About seven minutes later Jared Williams, assisted by Jagger Bowles and Shawn Rowe, added another one to the scoreboard for the Sr. Eagles.
The Eagles went into the final period down 4-2, but they continued to fight.
Brian Pieper, from Justin Lawson, was the first to score in the final frame of the game, but the Barons quickly responded to keep the Eagles at bay 5-3.
The Eagles added one more with 16:21 left of play when Jared Williams, assisted by Scott Kallis, with a power-play goal.
The Barons wrapped up Game 5 with three more goals bringing it to 8-4 at the final buzzer.
Overall, Coach Walker says the season was good, adding the team was a good group of guys, everybody got along and enjoyed the season.
“It had a lot of ups and downs,” said Walker. “I think everyone kind of learned a lot.”
“We had a fairly young team and we knew there was going to be some growing pains, [there was] a lot of turnover from last year,” added Walker.
Walker says he is now looking forward to next year.
Over the summer there will be recruiting and working on getting a healthy group of players.
“Thanks to all the fans and the town and everything for supporting us and without that we don’t get to play hockey,” said Walker.
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