Muskoka Mavericks fall 7-3 to Haliburton Red Wings

February 3, 2010

The Muskoka Mavericks girls’ bantam hockey team travelled with a shortened bench to Haliburton for a Friday night game against the Haliburton Red Hawks.  

The Muskoka Mavericks is a new, all girls’ hockey team with a Muskoka-wide catchment area featuring players D’Arcy Kirkwood, Kelsy Ball and Mariah Willett, all from the Huntsville/Lake of Bays area.

The Mavericks set the pace against Haliburton as they hit the ice as Kirkwood dug up the puck off the boards, passed it up to Brileigh McCrank who, in traffic, tucked a pass over to Sara Cook at centre.  

Cook took a big shot on net, but was denied. Maria Dikeos picked the rebound and buried the puck for the Mavericks’ first goal, 45 seconds into the period.  

Haliburton quickly answered to tie the game up a minute later. The Haliburton Hawks put up the go-ahead goal on a face-off deep in the Mavericks’ end.

Both teams were flying and end-to-end hockey ensued for the remainder of the first.The Hawks added one more to their lead to end out the first 2-1.

The second period was 15 minutes of evenly-matched play, with the Hawks adding two to their lead and the Hawks’ goalie denying all of Muskoka’s attempts to score. The Mavericks regrouped in the third period and came up with the next goal from good work by Sammi Turchet and Emma Lewis in front of the Hawks’ net as Lewis tucked it in for the team’s second marker.  

The third period was fast and physical, with traffic to both penalty boxes.  The Hawks put up two more goals through the period to spread their lead up to five. The Mavericks’ stamina and power endured through the third to shut down the Hawks for the remainder of the period.  

The Mavs finished the period strong, as Turchet wheeled in through traffic and lifted a shot to the back of the Haliburton net to put up the Mavericks’ third goal of the game.

But Muskoka came up short as the clock ran down and ended out the game 7-3.  

Haliburton and the Mavericks will meet up again in February, as the Mavericks will host them in Port Carling.