The
forecast called for a few snow showers ending in the morning. It snowed fairly heavily from early afternoon
all the way through the game. By the end
of the game the field was pretty well covered with snow. Both teams handled the conditions reasonably
well. There was some slipping and a few
errant passes, but it was not unreasonably sloppy.
We
played a great defensive first half and possessed the ball well also, giving us
a 7-2 halftime lead. John West and Ed
Brown did a tremendous job on their two
The
third quarter was a different story. We
could not win a face off; we struggled on a couple of clears (one resulting in
a 1 v. 0 goal), had several penalties and had a more
difficult time stopping them. They came
out fired up and we did not respond. We
had not been in the situation this year of facing someone that aggressive and it
showed. They went on a 5 goal run to tie
the game at 7. We caught a couple of
breaks at the end of the quarter. With only 7 seconds or so remaining in the
quarter they gained possession of the ball at their end line. The defenseman was apparently trying to throw
a pass over the midfield line in the hope of getting off a last shot. However, the ball went directly to our
attackman Mike Saraceni at the midfield line. Despite the panicked shouts
of "shoot, shoot!" from the stands and the players on the sideline
(!) Mike calmly passed the ball to Mark Foster, standing in front of the
goal, who scored with one second remaining. Not only was the goal fortunate, now the two
face off guys had to come out to face off with one second remaining. This became important as it was convenient to
ask the face off guys to check their sticks at the end of the quarter. It turns out the
The
4th Quarter was a more solid, even effort.
The victory was sealed late in the game with a nice dodge from Charley
Howe who dished up top to Dave Leach who was able to take a couple of steps and
then ripped home the clinching goal with around 4 minutes to play. I say clinching since we won, but there was
one scare late in the game with a
Junior
Mark Foster was the star of the game for us, netting 6 goals on the day. He is a fantastic shooter and finisher and
was able to get his hands free for some shots.
He also created his own shot a couple of times which was nice to see for
more of an off-ball shooter/finisher.
We
play