The Avonlea Arrows defeated the Cupar Canucks and the Southey Marlins defeated the Lumsden Monarchs in two games during the first round of playoffs. Our semi-finals started this past weekend. The Arrows were in Raymore on Saturday evening to play the first place Rockets. The Rockets won the first game 7-2. The Rockets got scoring from seven different players….Dallas Thiessen, Colin Herman, Shane Baum, Brett Kuglin, Scott Degelman, Todd MacMurchy and Josh Belair. Calvin Watson scored both of the Arrows goals. Nathan Fischl picked up the win for the Rockets while Justin Mrazek was in net for the Arrows. This series resumes on Saturday evening in Avonlea. The Wynyard Monarchs came off of their bye and were beat in Wynyard 8-2 by the Southey Marlins on Friday evening. The Marlins took a 4-0 lead into the third period and outscored the Monarchs 4-2 in the final frame. The scoring was spread out in this game also. The Marlins got a pair of goals from Jaret Eberle and Curtis Markewich with the balance of the scoring coming from Derek Halldorson, Chad Mazurak, Brad Shambel and Riley Probst. Wynyard’s scoring came from Ryan Peterson and Travis Cuddington. Jordan Kaczmar picked up the win for the Marlins and Adam Jordan was in net for the Monarchs. On Saturday evening the series switched to Southey. This game was tied at 3 going into the final period and this time the Monarchs outscored the Marlins 3-1 for a 6-4 victory. Each team had a shorthanded goal in this game and the Monarchs had two power play goals. Mike Kesserling scored twice for the Monarchs with the rest of the scoring coming from Ryan Richards, Aaron Lindal, Ryan Peterson and John Kopp. Travis Mohr scored twice for the Marlins. Curtis Markewich also scored and Jaret Eberle scored and had two assists. Adam Jordan picked up the win for the Monarchs and Tyler Kifferling was in net for the Marlins. This series resumes in Wynyard on Friday evening and in Southey on Saturday evening. Results will be posted at the completion of the game on the HHL playoff page (click on “2010 HHL Playoff” button on front page.

Here are the nominees for Most Valuable Player and Most Valuable Player local in the HHL for the 2009-2010 season:

Team                                 MVP                             MVP local
Avonlea Arrows-            Justin Mrazek                James Ardelan
Bethune Bulldogs-         Kyle Ulmer                    Kyle Ulmer       
Cupar Canucks-             Tyler Stewart                 Rylan Gebhart              
Lumsden Monarchs-      Matt McGeough            Jesse Matlock
Raymore Rockets-         Josh Belair                    Josh Jordan
Semans Wheat Kings-   Jared Molnar                
Southey Marlins-           Derek Halldorson           Travis Mohr
Wynyard Monarchs-       Ryan Peterson              Adam Jordan

Rookie of the year nominees are Brennan Wolf from the Bethune Bulldogs, Reiss Woolsey from the Cupar Canucks and Catlin Sich from the Raymore Rockets.

Most Sportsmanlike Player award is not a traditional nominated award. When teams submit their team’s nominees for all awards, they each submit one name from one of the other teams as their vote for Most Sportsmanlike player and it is announced at the All Star Banquet. All final voting for awards is done by each team.

We’ll publish the All Star team nominees next week. Please get out to a game near you this weekend. Thank you for supporting the Highway Hockey League.