Maroons Capture Crown

By Wyatt Williams

It has been over a decade and a half since a Chatham Maroon team has been crowned the Western Conference champions, but today at home, in a game seven situation they defeated the Leamington Flyers 5-2, to do just that.

The Maroons came out flying in the first, and totally dominated the Flyers. They were rewarded for their effort, and went to the locker room with a 3-0 lead , on goals by David Brown, and a pair by Cameron Symons.

Leamington did not go away and the second period play was carried by them. Flyers Gavin Grunder would score at the 3:31 mark to cut Chathams lead to 3-1. The Flyers out shot Chatham by a 17-7 count, but late in the period Connor Panonuzzi of the Maroons would score to restore his teams
three goal cushion.

The play in the third was fairly even, with Leamington play with desperation . There were only three penalties called in the game, and all were in the third. Flyers Gabe Piccolo was able to get a break will killing a penalty and go down and score on Nolan Dekoning to make it 4-2 at the at the 11:54 mark. That would be it for scoring until Chatham’s Cam Symons completed his hat trick on an empty net at 18:13.

The Maroons have now advance to the final 3, and will play a home and away round robin with the other two conference champions. The Cambridge Redhawk are the MidWest winners, and the St Catharines Falcons are the Golden Horseshoe champs. The top two from this play goes to the Sutherland Cup finals, which is a best of three series.