The Elora Mohawks closed out the regular season last week with wins in two of their final three games, firmly securing the second seed for the upcoming Junior 'B' playoffs.
Elora began their final week of the season by dropping a 7-5 decision in Orangeville, but closed out the schedule by thumping the Regals 12-5 in Guelph and Niagara 9-4 in Elora.
At Orangeville, the Mohawks played the better part of two periods as listless as possible and found themselves down 5-0 for their lack of effort. Jordan Godin, a pick-up from Guelph at the trade deadline, scored with 1:04 to play in the second to get Elora on the board, and that provided just enough of a spark to wake the Tribe up in the third period.
Orangeville's Dustin Caravello scored 1:02 into the third period, but goals from Mark Pfohl and Evan Benham trimmed the lead to 6-3 with 14-plus minutes to play. Andrew Stoner stopped Elora's run on goals with his second of the game, but Pfohl and Jake Weidner netted goals less than two minutes apart to make it 7-5 with six-plus minutes to play.
Elora applied plenty of late pressure, but Curtis Rydall came up with just enough saves to preserve the win for the Northmen.
In Guelph, Elora took command of the game in the first period and never relented. Kyle Dobbie and Scott Cook scored just over a minute apart to make it a 2-0 game, and Guelph never seriously threatened after that.
Leading 3-1 going into the second period, Elora ripped off three goals in three minutes to take a 6-1 lead and firmly put Guelph behind the eight ball. The teams traded goals for the next half-period, but Elora closed the game out by scoring the final four goals of the night.
Cook (2 goals, 2 assists) and Kyle Goss (1,3) led Elora with four points each, while Weidner (1,2), Pfohl (1,2) and Jake Hostrawser (3 assists) finished with three apiece.
Ricky McGarr earned the win (22 saves on 27 shots) after being pulled two nights earlier in Orangeville (31 saves on 37 shots in 41 minutes of work).
Facing off with the Niagara Thunderhawks to finish the schedule, Elora struggled at the defensive end of the floor for the first 20 minutes before eventually settling down against the scoring-impaired Thunderhawks.
Tied at 3-3 after the first period, Elora wasted little time in asserting itself following the intermission. Weidner scored 2:47 into the second period, with Kyle Dobbie and Goss following up on that with goals in a four-minute span to turn the score in Elora's favour.
After an unsettled first period that saw him make eight saves on 11 shots, McGarr got into a groove and stopped all 12 shots he saw in the second period. That allowed the defence to settle as well, and they limited the Thunderhawks to just six shots in the final frame with McGarr stopping five of them.
Dobbie (2,3), Goss (2,3) and Godin (1,4) finished with five points each to lead the Tribe, while Weidner finished with a pair of goals.
Head coach Dean George said none of the coaches were pleased with what they saw in the first period against Niagara, and it was Sean Turner that came into the team's room and laid out the challenge to get better.
"It was Coach Turner that came in and challenged these guys to get ready for the playoffs by starting to play better tonight," he said. "We had talked before the game, and it wasn't about anything other than us getting ready. We wanted to work on our defensive break-out and how we play off the ball. I thought we did a much better job of things in the second and third periods."
After putting together a 16-3-1 record this season, George said that it's one of the best regular-season records the Mohawks have had in a few years but he didn't want to dwell on things for too long. The top priority right now is to make sure the team is as healthy as possible going into the playoffs, where they still didn't know their opponent for Round One as of press time.
Owen Sound and Orangeville closed out the schedule Monday in Orangeville, and an Owen Sound win there would bring Oakville to Elora for the first round. Should the Orangemen have won, that would relegate Elora to playing the North Stars. George believes Elora matches up well with either the Stars or Buzz, but made it clear that the Tribe will have to work hard for everything it gets in the playoffs.
"Owen Sound is a big, physical team but we seem to play our best against teams like that," he said. "Oakville is quick and skilled, so either team will be a challenge. We're only worried about ourselves right now. The work ethic needs to be there, and we need to simply out-work teams to win in the playoffs."