The Midget Rep Eagles tore into Mission in two straight games to advance to the final four teams vying for the Lower Mainland AA championships scheduled to start Friday (Feb. 29).The Tier 4 Eagles were considered underdogs against the Tier 3 Mission team, which ended the regular season second place in its Pacific Coast Amateur Hockey Association division."I think we caught the Mission team off guard," said head coach Barry Ackerman. "They thought they'd walk right through us and our boys played exceptionally well."Things weren't looking up for the Eagles going into the four-point series as starting goaltender Brett Miller, who backstopped the regional team to the Scholarship Tournament championship last month, was injured playing ball hockey at school. Back-up goaltender Cory Koop took advantage of his chance to shine, earning a shut-out in the first game on the road. Oliver McQuaid hit the ice firing hard, scoring the game's only two goals in the first 10 minutes. The Eagles had to protect the nest egg through 30 minutes of penalties. In a 45-minute game, it meant the team spent most of the last two periods shorthanded one or two players."Let's just say the officiating was at best bad," said Ackerman. "But the boys... played the box absolutely perfect and Cory came up big."After holding on to a 2-0 win for two points in the series, the Eagles buried Mission at home 2-1 on Thursday (Feb. 14). Mission scored first but Dylan Ackerman and Conrad Sander responded with goals. This time it was Mission's turn to deal with a high volume of penalties and they couldn't even the score. Ackerman said his team should have taken advantage of power plays to earn a cushion."We had more than enough opportunities to put them away but just didn't capitalize on it, so the 2-1 score is quite flattering for them."Squamish will play Seafair in the final four round-robin playdowns as they beat West Vancouver in two straight games. Meanwhile, the other two battles are not yet finished.
