The Yukon Peewee Mustangs have captured their third medal in three tournaments. They took their latest with some breathing room — 11 goals of breathing room.
The Mustangs claimed bronze with a 13-2 win over B.C.’s Fort Nelson Fury at the Whitehorse International Showdown Dec. 28 at the Canada Games Centre.
The Yukon rep team was sent to the bronze game after tying Alaska’s Mat’su/Wasilla Eagles and losing to the Yellowknife Wolf Pack in the round robin.
The team showed improvement as the weekend went on, said Mustangs head coach A.J. Beacon.
“As the weekend goes the team comes together a little more, realizing it’s a team game where you pass the puck,” said Beacon. “If you pass the puck you can move faster skating with the puck. That’s one of the differences between Yellowknife and us. They’re an older, more mature team — they’re mostly a second-year team — and they pass the puck really well. I think our players learned a lot from playing that game against Yellowknife.”
The Mustangs tied the Eagles 3-3 on Friday and beat the Fury 18-1 Saturday morning. They then lost 8-3 to Yellowknife after allowing five unanswered goals in the third period.
“It was a close game and then Yellowknife started getting their wheels going,” said Beacon. “It’s hard to keep up with that team. It’s a good qualified Tier 2 team.”
A mathematical equation — goals for divided by goals for plus goals against — edged the Mustangs out of gold medal game. The Eagles punched their ticket with 0.545 to Mustangs’ 0.520.
Yukon cruised to victory in the third-place game with eight goal scorers. Captain Ty Beacon had two goal and three assists; Joshua Schenk two goals and two assists; Sawyer Adams one goal and two assists; and Max Zimmerman one goal and one assist. Tanner Gorrell, Austin Larkin and Luke Cozens also scored in the bronze game while Ethan Candow had two assists. Goalie Fynn Ritchie got the win in net for the Mustangs.
Mustangs winger Seth Sheardown-Waugh had a six-point game with a hat trick and was named MVP for his team.
“It was an excellent game for Seth. He’s been playing well all weekend,” said A.J. “He’s a really gritty, down-to-earth kid who gets in there and goes into the cracks.
“He’ll work hard every shift.”
Yellowknife Wolf Pack went on to beat the Eagles 8-0 in the gold medal game.
The Peewee Mustangs took silver at the Juan de Fuca Peewee Tournament in Victoria, B.C., last month and picked up bronze at the Abbotsford Peewee Icebreaker over Thanksgiving weekend.
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com