The Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs season has come to an end after four straight second-round playoff losses to the Whitecourt Wolverines, including a 2-1 loss in Bonnyville on Friday, which sent the Pontiacs home for the summer and the Wolverines onto the AJHL's North Division final.
“It's very disappointing,” said Pontiacs head coach and general manager Chad Mercier. “It's devastating for this group, especially the 20-year-olds.”
But, he said Whitecourt was the better team during the second-round series.
“Give Whitecourt some credit. They out-worked us and were more disciplined than us. Not by a wide margin, but they did enough to come out on top and unfortunately we came up short.”
Following the game, not a lot was said in the Pontiacs dressing room, Mercier noted.
“There was not much to be said at that point. We all saw what happened and it was not really the time to talk about it. We didn't say a whole lot.”
He planned to address the group as a whole first thing on Monday and then each player individually as the final day of the Pontiacs 2012-13 season comes to a close.
Mercier said the Pontiacs playoff drive was indicative of the season as a whole.
“We were very up and down and inconsistent. There were times we looked very good and times we didn't even show up to play.”
The Pontiacs started the playoffs with a dramatic 3-2 overtime win in Bonnyville over Drayton Valley, but followed that up with a 2-0 loss to the Thunder in game two.
Bonnyville then responded with two straight shutout wins in Drayton Valley to move on to the second round.
Bonnyville again opened a series with a win, this time a 4-2 victory over the Wolverines.
But the team slipped after that and could not recover, dropping games two, three, four and five by scores of 4-3, 6-1, 1-0 and 2-1 respectively.
Mercier said at this point it is still hard to look at the season as a whole, knowing that both the expectations and potential for success were very high, but the final results were disappointing.
“We try to celebrate the successes (finishing third in the North Division for only the second time in team history). We did some very good things this season. Our expectations were high and we believed this group had the chance to do something special, but obviously we didn't accomplish what we set out to do.”
With Pontiacs spring camp set to start in about two weeks, Mercier said it's a quick turnaround from this season to the next.
“After Monday's player meetings, we'll get together as coaches and assess all the successes and failures from this season and moving forward. Because if you don't do that, you're not working to get better. And if you're not working to get better, you're in the wrong sport.”
