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PUBLISHED: Thursday, February 22, 2007
Reps sew up conference title



TRAVERSE CITY -- For the third year in a row, the Traverse Bay Reps coop hockey team sits atop the Northern Michigan Hockey League as league champion.

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The Reps finished the league schedule with a perfect, 6-0, record, ahead of the second-place team, Cheboygan.

The Reps clinched the title outright by shutting out Cheboygan, 5-0, in a matinee game at Centre Ice on Saturday, Feb. 17.

"It's a small conference, but it gives us something to play for," Reps coach Rex Luxton said. "It's kind of nice to think we've kind of dominated it. This team has come a long way this year, and this game is a pretty good indication of how we've progressed. They beat us 4-2 in the Thanksgiving Tournament, but we beat them two games in the league."

The Reps never let the Chiefs get into the game as they scored three goals in the opening period and twice more in the second period to forge the five-goal advantage.

"We tried to jump on them quick because they had to play the night before, and we did that," Luxton said.

Kalkaska's Dan Tinkle got a hat trick to lead the way against the Chiefs. Tinkle got the Reps on the scoreboard at 3:29 of the first period with the assists going to Jake Mills (Elk Rapids) and Andrew Zelinski (Traverse City St. Francis).

Tinkle added goals at 14:21 of the first from Zelinski and at 11:02 of the second from Adrian Ringlever (ER).

Kalkaska's Tim Dixon scored at 9:21 of the first period from Dan Fisher (TCSF) and Mike Kowalski (TCSF), and Fisher scored an unassisted goal at 2:10 of the second to round out the scoring.

Reps 5, Mid Michigan 1
Five players scored when Traverse Bay clinched at least a tie in the league by downing the Mid Michigan Storm, 5-1, on Friday, Feb. 16.

Andrew Walukonis (TCSF), Kowalski, Tinkle, Fisher and Dixon all tallied one goal each to account for the Reps scoring, Assists for the game went to Dixon, Ben Videan (TCSF), Zelinski, Tinkle, Ringlever, Tyler Wilson (ER) and Grayson Mayas (K).

Jake Mills made 17 saves to get the win in goal. "It was a chippy kind of a game with a lot of hacking and slashing," Luxton said. "We had to go a long way to put it away and we had to kill off seven penalties along the way, but we managed to get it done."

Traverse Bay travels to Big Rapids on Friday, Feb. 23.

The Reps will face off against Mid Michigan at Centre Ice on Monday, Feb. 26, in the preregionals, and Traverse City West will take on Manistee at Howe Arena in the second game. The winners will meet on Wednesday, Feb. 28, for the right to advance to the regional final in Sault Ste. Marie on March 2.





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