A total team effort has vaulted the Okotoks U15 AA Oilers to provincials.
The Oilers followed up their gruelling divisional playoff tournament title with a two-game sweep over the Olds Grizzlys in the best-of-three final to claim the South Central Alberta Hockey League banner and with it a spot at the Hockey Alberta Provincial Championships.
“The last few months we’ve really been pushing being 19-strong,” said U15 AA Oilers head coach Daron Dumanski. “We kept elevating our game and every player contributed, maybe not on the scoresheet, but doing the little things, our goaltending was great, the best it’s been all year.”
In a goalless stalemate in Game 2, the Oilers opened the scoring in the third period with Anthony Scott finding the back of the net followed by an empty netter from Cooper Farion. Olds scored in the final seconds. Quinn Esler stopped 24 of 25 shots for his first win of the series.
In Game 1 of the set, Okotoks scored a 5-3 victory with Grayson Juba scoring twice and MacLane Tetarenko, Cody Carson and Lincoln Schultz tickling twine.
Matthew McCallum made 20 saves for Okotoks.
“Olds is a hard-working team that plays really physical,” the coach added. “And we had a plan going in and the boys all executed it, using our speed and driving the net and we came out on top.”
The Oilers got to the SCAHL final following its South Division championship won in a playoff format the previous weekend in Medicine Hat.
The banner is the first for the Okotoks U15 AA program since 2017, a team that featured a number of alumni who’ve gone on to play at higher levels, including goaltender Gage Alexander, a member of the Anaheim Ducks organization, WHL stars Kai Uchacz and Dru Krebs and Connor Poffenroth, a star centre on the AJHL’s Drumheller Dragons, to name just a few.
Okotoks, fourth place finishers at the 2024 Alberta Winter Games last month, will be in Edmonton for the Hockey Alberta U15 AA Provincial Championships from March 21-24.
“The whole year has been building towards this,” Dumanski said. “We use every tournament as a prep of we’ve got to get better and even if we didn’t win, we take away what we did well and kept building and they’ve all bought in to what we’ve been selling.”
The U16 AA Oilers saw their playoff run fall just short in the league final.
Okotoks, which won the semifinal tournament the week prior, was downed in two games by the top seed Airdrie Havoc.
Banner weekend
The Okotoks U18 AA Oilers added to the recent run of success in the South Central Alberta Hockey League with a dominant performance at the South Division playoff.
Okotoks skated to a 5-0 record in the tournament in Medicine Hat and defeated the host Hounds 4-3 in the gold medal game to advance to the league finals.
Tye Matthews broke the 3-3 deadlock late in the third period after Eric Vassell, Ethan Miller and Isaac Cayetano scored earlier for the visitors.
Okotoks, the top team in the regular season across all divisions, scored 24 goals in its five wins in the Hat.
The Oilers will host the best-of-three league finals this weekend versus West Central.
For full schedule information, go to scahl.com.
