The Clarenville Caribous won their third Herder Memorial Trophy championship in four years, defeating the Grand Falls-Windsor Cataracts 6-3 Sunday afternoon at the Pepsi Centre in Corner Brook.
The Caribous took The Telegram Herder Memorial Trophy Championship series in five games. Clarenville dropped the opening game of the final 5-1 last Saturday night at Mile One Centre in St. John’s, but roared back with four straight victories.
The Cataracts won the Herder last year, snapping the Caribous’ streak of two straight provincial senior hockey titles.
Steve Yetman paced Clarenville with two goals. Singles came from Dale Sullivan, Jeff Caron, Chris Hulit and Jeremy Kavanagh.
Chad Earle scored twice for the Cats, while veteran Chris Peach netted the other goal.
Clarenville captain Dustin Russell was the winner of the Cliff Gorman Memorial Award as the playoffs’ most valuable player.
“We definitely had our hearts set on winning the Herder this year,” Russell said. “The Cats took it from us last year so this is where we wanted to be.
“We didn’t really expect to win three games this weekend because I really thought the Cats were too strong for that happen. I fully expected to go back to St. John’s next weekend, but when we got them in a hole we knew they were too good to let them up. We had to keep going and we were fortunate to get the bounces and played hard.”
After splitting the opening two games in St. John’s, Clarenville won Game 3 Friday night 3-2 on Dale Sullivan’s overtime marker. The Caribous won Game 4-3 Saturday night.
