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Peewee A Storm mine silver in home tourney

Shortly after their gold-medal loss Sunday in the Stettler peewee A hockey tournament, the host Storm could see light breaking
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Stettler Storm captain James Switenky (right) battles in the corner against Kaden Kuffert of the Lloydminster Blazers in the final of the Stettler peewee A tournament.

Shortly after their gold-medal loss Sunday in the Stettler peewee A hockey tournament, the host Storm could see light breaking through the clouds.

The Storm lost 5-4 to Lloydminster in an entertaining final at the Stettler Recreation Centre.

“We played a good game today and the guys battled right to the last buzzer and had a couple of chances to tie ’er up, but fate wouldn’t have it for us,” said Stettler coach Jason Hegberg.

“But I said to the guys after the game, ‘This isn’t what we’re playing for. We’re playing for provincials.’ And hopefully we’ll be able to throw our gloves up in the air after the last game.”

In provincial qualifying action, Stettler hosts Strathcona this Thursday night in the second and final game of their total-goal series. Strathcona leads 1-0 after posting a 5-4 victory at home last Friday.

“We’ve got to win the game by two (goals) to advance,” Hegberg said.

“I think these last two games we played in the tournament against Lloyd really prepared us. It was probably the best thing for us. Even losing today, I mean, you try to find the positive out of it. I think our guys are way more prepared than we were three days ago. It’s a great thing for us and we’ll move forward from here.”

The peewee A provincials are scheduled for March 21-24 at Hinton.

It was a dramatic weekend for Stettler, which came back from a 6-1 deficit and scored in the dying seconds to beat Lloydminster 8-7 in their preliminary round game Saturday.

“All year, within our league, we are beating teams quite handily, so the competition maybe isn’t best for us to (prepare for) where we want to go, and what our goal is for the year,” Hegberg said Sunday.

“But the 5-4 loss Friday night in Strathcona was kind of a wake-up call for us. And coming into the tournament this weekend, we knew we’d have some competition.

“We scored with four seconds left to win 8-7 (against Lloydminster), after being down 6-1. It was a huge character-builder for our team. And we played the same team again today and it was close the whole way.”

Lloydminster, which received goals from five players, led 2-1 after the first period and 5-3 after the second.

Rhett Shingoose, with his second goal of the game, closed the gap to 5-4 with 10:25 left. Samuel Hamelin and Brenden Tucker scored the other Stettler goals.

Storm goaltender Davan Nattestad faced 29 shots, while Stettler fired 27 shots at Lloydminster netminder Reid Turcotte, whose grandmother and other Delburne relatives watched him in action on the weekend.

In its first game Saturday, Stettler dumped St. Albert 10-1. Lloydminster opened the tournament with a 9-3 victory over Okotoks, which lost 3-0 to St. Albert in the other game.

The Stettler peewee B and peewee C teams also hosted weekend tournaments. In their respective B finals Sunday, the Storm B team lost 4-2 to Camrose, while the Stettler C club dropped a 3-1 decision to Blackfalds.