Goaltender Brady Toulouse was already very much on his game, recording his second shutout of the weekend as the Copper Cliff U15 AA Reds advanced to the final of the Glen Bellarby Memorial Tournament last weekend in Barrie with a 1-0 win over the Kapuskasing Regional Express.
Once his teammates jumped fully aboard, leaving behind the memories of an ugly 6-1 Saturday evening loss to the Collingwood Jr Blues behind them, the Reds were pretty much unstoppable in the rematch.
Landen Creasey opened the scoring in the gold medal affair with a second period power-play goal, Harrison Markiewich doubled the advantage in the third, also on the PP, and Nolan Larche sealed the deal with an empty net tally in the final minute of play.
Throw in a second straight shutout for Toulouse and one has the makings of a 3-0 revenge victory after the Reds opened round robin play with three straight wins: 4-0 over the Rideau St-Lawrence Kings; 5-1 over the Richmond Hill Jaguars; and 6-3 over the TNT Tornadoes.
"what we are happiest about this weekend ws our complete team's resilience to rebound on Sunday following a disappointing loss," noted Copper Cliff team manager Carmen Tripodi.
"The players put that setback behind them and elevated their performance even further in the finals, delivering what we feel may have been one of our best games this season."
In the all-northern semi-final affair, the Reds were finding it difficult to solve Kapuskasing netminding standout Maxime Labrie-Neegan - at least until late in the second period when Jonathan Tripodi managed to spring Adrian Aho on a clear-cut breakaway, with the shifty forward making no mistake.
The team is now preparing for the NOHA Tournament of Champions playdowns in North Bay on the weekend of March 22nd to the 24th, but may still try and slide in another tournament prior to that, just to keep their game sharp.
The balance of the 2023-2024 Copper Cliff U15 AA Reds roster features Reid Bombardieri, Ryan Corrigan, Dominic D'Angelo, Alex Marshfield, Logan Moran, Carter Mullen, Jean-Claude Paquette, Connor Paris, Alex Simons, Hudson Teddy, Karyssa Vaillancourt and Alexander Wierzbicki.
