Cougars Season Ends With 4th Place Finish In League Championship Tournament

March 23, 2002
The Pee Wee B championships for Northern California ended Sunday morning with the Tri Valley Blue Devils knocking off the Santa Rosa Flyers 5-2 to capture the Championship banner for the 2001/2002 season. The Blue Devils completed a remarkable season with another dominating win. They showed that they were the class of the league with their discipline and playmaking throughout the six-month season and, even though they were handed their first loss since the exhibition games, in the NORCAL tournament. Good luck to both the Blue Devils and Flyers as they advance to represent Northern California in the California State Championships next month in Lakewood.

The tournament had all kinds of possibilities for the Cougars. Going into the evening games on Saturday they were right in the hunt to make the championship game. If the Blue Devils would have continued with their domination of the opponents, the Cougars would have just needed a victory over the Flyers to qualify as the second seed. Inexplicably, the Blue Devils lost to the Capital Thunder. Now the tiebreakers were working against them. They now had to beat the Flyers by 4 or 5 goals (depending on the score). Not that they couldn't do it. In the second game of the regular season, the Cougars played one of the best games of the season and beat the Flyers 5-0 at Bridgepointe. Both teams were playing for this second seed. The Flyers also had the 'win or go home' situation. The fire under the Flyers just seemed

	Stephen F

stronger this evening, especially after the first goals was scored a few minutes into the game. That made a difficult situation even harder and seemed to take all the wind out of the Cougar sails. The Flyers added two more goals in the first to take a 3-0 lead into the second. A power play goal for the Cougars cut the lead to 3-1 and the gleam seemed to come back into the players for just an instant, but he Flyers came right back 1:30 later to put their lead back to 3. Stephen Fragoza scored scored four of the six Cougar goals for the three games of the tournament (Stephen Lamers and Augie Lagemann had the others), including the last goal of the game on a power play (plus the goalie was pulled for a 6-on-4 advantage) with :21 seconds left. The realization that the season was officially over sunk in as the final horn sounded and the Cougars watched the Flyers celebrate.

Disappointment is how almost every team will end their season. Four teams felt this way last week as they said they good-byes and today it was the Cougars and the Capital Thunder. Only one team in the state will end the season on a high note as they win the CAHA B title. For everyone else, it will end on a sour note. With the Cougars, it is more of an unfulfilled feeling as this was a very talented team that just couldn't seem to reach all of their potential.

Earlier tournament games

	Jordan

Saturday morning had the Cougars against the Blue Devils in the first game of the day. The Cougars started strong when Stephen Lamers

	Stephen L

punched home a rebound at 13:36 of the first period, and played well the entire period. They had a few more chances that they just couldn't convert, and Jordan Fragoza made several great saves to keep the Tri Valley off the board. In the second, an early power play goal got the Blue Devils going and they never looked back. They put home three in the second and two more in the third before the Cougars could score again (on a Augie blast from the blue line). As a team, the Cougars struggled defensively leaving people open around the net and had trouble clearing the zone. This loss makes the Santa Rosa game this evening even more critical. The Cougars need a win and then some help to make the championship game on Sunday.

On Friday, the first game of the playoffs pitted the Tri Valley Blue Devils against the Santa Rosa Flyers. The Blue Devils went through the regular season undefeated, but found themselves on the short end of a 3-2 score with less than 10 minutes to go. A score after a scrum in front of the net and a deflection less than a minute later gave them the lead that they held on to, and they added a late goal when the Santa Rosa Flyers were pulling everyone deep to try to tie the score. Final, Tri Valley 5, Santa Rosa 3.

The Cougars vs. Capital Thunder followed. This game was tight the entire way. The Cougars scored first, only a couple of minutes into the game and held onto the lead for most of the period until the Thunder tied it up with only 16 seconds left in the period. The second was a classic battle - 'battle' was right word as the penalty minutes will show. This included Alex Lagemann getting called for his fifth penalty

	Jonathan

of the game - resulting in a misconduct (and 1 game suspension) - not that anyone on the Cougar side necessarily agrees with some of those calls. A goal by each team in the middle of the third period ended the scoring, but only because Jonathan Wilson stuffed some great opportunities by the Thunder and the Cougars jjjuuusssttt missed on a couple of wonderful chances. A tie was a fitting ending - the Cougars could have easily lost the game if the Thunder would have found their power play, but they could also have won with a flick of the puck going a few inches in a different direction.