After an amazing season the Wightlink Raiders finally met their match at the weekend as the Chelmsford Chieftains stormed to victory in the ENL play off final.
The Chieftains produced a brilliant display over two nights to grab the honours with the Raiders ending up beaten finalists for the second successive season.
It started well enough on Saturday with Robbie Brown putting the Raiders ahead early in the home leg but Chelmsford stormed back with two goals in a minute early in the second period and never looked back, taking the spoils 4-2 at Ryde Arena … only the Raiders second home defeat of the season.
Island fans support Sunday game
On Sunday well over 100 Island fans made the trip up to Essex for the second leg hoping to repeat their play off heroics from last year when they came from 3-1 down to beat Chelmsford on their home ice.
But it wasn’t to be as a determined Chieftains team ruled the roost throughout aside from a brief Raiders fightback in the second period.
9-3 aggregate victory for Chieftans
Chelmsford’s dominance was confirmed in the final period with 4 unanswered goals while the Raiders could only manage one shot on goal in the last 20 minutes. A 5-1 win on the night meant a 9-3 aggregate victory over the two legs confirming the Chieftains superiority over the weekend.
So the play off trophy is now in Essex and the Raiders will have to make do with the league championship trophy at the end of the team’s most successful season for 14 years.
Proud of team
Team owner Geoff Underwood says the fans should be incredibly proud of the teams efforts this season, “Let’s not forget that we are the League Champions. That means we outplayed every team in our league over a whole season, and that to me is more important. It shows a sustained consistency of effort, skill and commitment from an awesome team, so let’s not be too downhearted because we had one poor weekend. We have a team and coach to be proud of, who have delivered us silverware for the first time in many many years, and I for one am delighted with, and grateful to everyone on the team.”
The successes will now be celebrated at the end of season dinner and awards presentation night at the Ponda Rosa near Ryde this Thursday night.
Image: © Used with the kind permission of Dave Steadman
