The Prairie Hockey Academy U17 White Cougars are once again champions of the Lorne Molleken Elite U17 Prep Prairie Classic.
PHA put together a 2-0-1-0 record in their round robin before defeating Okanagan Hockey Academy Black 2-1 in the semifinal on Saturday night before downing the Lloydminster Rohan Lancers 5-3 in the championship game Sunday afternoon.
It was a solid weekend in general for the Cougars, as they opened with an 8-1 win over Indigenous Sports Academy before falling 4-3 in overtime to OHA Black and closing out the preliminary round with a 3-1 win over OHA Edmonton Prep.
That sent the Caronport-based crew into the semifinal, where they’d prevail in a hard-fought battle against OHA Black.
Luke Pratte would emerge as the hero from that contest, scoring the eventual game-winner 3:22 into the third period.
Calum Gieseq -- who had four points against PHA in their round-robin meeting -- scored the opening goal 1:11 into the proceedings, but Soren Hayden would get that back for PHA with 4:13 to play in the frame.
Cameron Beisal made 32 saves in goal for the Cougars, while Aiden Prosser stopped 43 for OHA.
Lloydminster upset unbeaten Notre Dame 5-2 in the other semifinal, setting up the title game on Sunday.
There, PHA took a 2-1 lead out of the first period and led 3-2 through two before Pratte scored a valuable insurance marker 9:10 into the final period. Peyden Chief-Iron scored on the power play for Lloydminster with 1:23 to play to make for an interesting finish, but Jaxon Nicol finished things off with an empty netter with one second on the clock.
Rylan Garnier opened scoring for the Lancers only 31 seconds into the game, but Austin Gammon tied the game five minutes later, followed by the go-ahead goal from Hudson Thiessen with 4:58 to play in the first.
Georgi Milanov wasn’t all that busy in the PHA goal in the final, stopping 16 shots, while Luke Light stopped 44 for Lloydminster.
Other PHA results on the weekend saw the U15 Prep Cougars fall 5-4 to Notre Dame, while the U17 Prep Blue dropped three games in a series with Edge School Maroon Prep, losing 8-2 in their opener Friday before falling 7-2 both Saturday and Sunday. The U18 Prep Cougars had the weekend off.
