{"id":36011,"date":"2025-03-20T16:06:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T20:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36011"},"modified":"2025-03-20T16:06:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T20:06:33","slug":"junior-panthers-drop-games-1-and-2-of-owhl-playoff-series-versus-the-ice-wolves-in-kingston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/junior-panthers-drop-games-1-and-2-of-owhl-playoff-series-versus-the-ice-wolves-in-kingston\/","title":{"rendered":"Junior Panthers drop Games 1 and 2 of OWHL playoff series versus the Ice Wolves in Kingston"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Central York Junior Panthers will need to run the table in Aurora next weekend to keep their 2024-25 OWHL playoff hopes alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U22 Panthers\u2019 post-season aspirations are on thin ice after dropping Games 1 and 2 of their opening round best-of-five series with the Ice Wolves in Kingston on Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday afternoon, the seventh-seeded Panthers attempted to bounce back from a 4-1 loss on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central York outshot the ninth-seeded Ice Wolves by 30-15 in Game 2 and played a dominant third period, but the opportunistic home side eked out a narrow 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Central York (30-12-0-2) finished twenty points ahead of Kingston (23-19-0-2) at the end of the 44-game regular season, it was mostly Ice Wolves at the Invista Centre in the first two games of the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panthers\u2019 Head Coach Steve Dempsey gave the home team credit for their performance on the weekend: \u201cKingston did a great job capitalizing on its opportunities.  We didn\u2019t play very well on Saturday. There were two goals we\u2019d like to have back. I think the long winning streak might have taken away from our focus going into the playoffs and overall we didn\u2019t play the desperate kind of hockey we need to play in the postseason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did a much better job on Sunday, we outshot them 17-8 in the third period, and made a 180-degree improvement on Saturday. We were just missing goals on Sunday\u2014we had pucks just rolling off our sticks that we usually shoot into the back of the net.  Their goalie also played very well, especially on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coach Dempsey\u2019s Panthers outshot the Ice Wolves 30-15 in Game 2, but Kingston goaltender Aneta Senkova was up to the task at hand\u2014repelling 29 of the 30 shots she faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senkova was the 18th<\/sup>-ranked goalie during the regular season with a 2.15 GAA, a .926 SAV%, and four shutouts in her 27 starts. However, in the opening two playoff games versus the higher-ranked Panthers, Senkova\u2019s numbers have been considerably better with a 1.00 GAA and a .960 SAV%. Coach Dempsey has seen Senkova a few times this season: \u201cShe\u2019s a streaky goalie and she\u2019s got her angles set really well right now. She finished the regular season with a number of excellent starts so she\u2019s a hot goalie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senkova\u2019s heroics between the pipes all but neutralized the Central York\u2019s\u2019 top-scoring forwards \u2013including 35-goal scorer Cheyenne Degeer who was kept off the scoresheet on the weekend. The Junior Panthers\u2019 offence managed only one late-third period goal in both contests, and the Aurora-based squad trailed in both games from start to finish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Game One on Saturday, Kingston jumped out to a 2-0 lead midway through the first period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ava Vrana opened the scoring at 12:14 and Samantha Keil gave the home side a two-goal cushion at 8:51.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With two seconds left in the middle frame, Claire Chambers\u2019s power play goal increased Kingston\u2019s lead to 3-0.  Five minutes into the third period, Cora Galliah provided the knockout punch for the Ice Wolves to give Kingston a commanding four-goal lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Janovski got the Panthers on the scoreboard with 3:39 left when she converted a pass from Amy Clements to beat Senkova, but Central York\u2019s offence was limited to 20 shots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upset loss not only inspired the Ice Wolves, but it also ended the Junior Panthers\u2019 impressive 14-game winning streak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Game Two on Sunday, Kingston\u2019s Peyton Cormier\u2019s power play goal with 5:20 left in the first period opened the scoring. The upstart Ice Wolves fired the game-winning goal with 4:51 left in the second period when Ashlea Whyte beat Izzy Whynot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like Saturday\u2019s performance, the Panthers didn\u2019t score until late in the third period.  Avery Johnston\u2014Central York\u2019s second-leading point scorer in the regular season\u2014lit the lamp behind Senkova with 3:09 left on the clock.  Zoe Li and Clara Liu earned assists on Johnston\u2019s first of the playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central York is scheduled to host Games 3, 4, and 5 at SARC on Friday, March 21 at 7 p.m., Saturday, March 22 at 1.55 p.m., and Sunday, March 23 at 1.25 p.m. \u2014all must-wins for the Junior Panthers if they hope to advance to the next round of the OWHL playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coach Dempsey pointed out what\u2019s needed to enable a three-game sweep by the Panthers at SARC: \u201cWe\u2019ll need to disrupt Senkova\u2019s confidence. We also knew this series was going to be a long series.  They won their games on home ice and now it\u2019s our turn to win our games at home.  We need to keep the same mentality we showed in the third period on Sunday when we outshot them and played our game. We\u2019ll be focused on winning the first period on Friday and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Stewart<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Central York Junior Panthers will need to run the table in Aurora next weekend to keep their 2024-25 OWHL playoff hopes alive. The U22 Panthers\u2019 post-season aspirations are on thin ice after dropping Games 1 and 2 of their opening round best-of-five series with the Ice Wolves in Kingston on Saturday and Sunday. On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9mP","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 06:43:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36012,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36011\/revisions\/36012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}