Sep 19, 2010 | smccarthy | 2260 views
Sting go 2-2 in preseason tournament
The Lambton Sting Minor Atoms began their season with a strong showing in London's Peter Puck Tournament. Despite a tough schedule that would see them playing 3 games spread out over 12 hours on Saturday the Sting posted a very respectable 2-2 record.
Lambton opened the tournament on Friday afternoon against the Oshawa Generals. The boys came out flying and took a quick 2-0 lead. Brock Barber would score both goals while parked in his 'office', right in front of the Generals net. He buried the first one under the crossbar after a nifty pass from Nolan DeGurse. Dylan Riddell provided hard work in the corner to help set up the goal. Barber's second goal was unassisted as he took advantage of an Oshawa turnover.
Oshawa would take the play to the Sting from that point and despite strong goaltending from Liam McCarthy, with 39 saves, and outstanding work from the blueline quartet of Ryan Barwitzki, Blake Brand, Cole MacKinnon and Brandon Neelin the Generals would prevail 3-2.
On Saturday morning the Sting would get in the win column with a 4-1 victory over the North York Rangers. North York would score on their first shot of the game but after that McCarthy would settle down and stopped everything else the Rangers tried to throw at him.
North York spent plenty of time in the penalty box and the disciplined play from the Sting resulted in a pair of powerplay goals for DeGurse. Barwitzki and Jaycob White would also score for the Sting. Barwitzki's goal came at the end of another terrific rush by the defenseman while White's was a bullet in the top corner that the goalie still hasn't seen. Josh McLean, Hunter Monkhouse, Barwitzki and Riddell earned assists.
Next up for the Sting was a rematch with the Elgin-Middlesex Chiefs. The Lambton boys knew the Chiefs players quite well, having beaten them 3 straight times in exhibition play. Lambton would make it four in a row with a hard fought 5-3 victory over the Chiefs. The Sting built a 3-0 lead before Elgin rallied to tie the game with 3 second period goals.
A good pep talk from the coaching staff before the third period had the boys fired up. Lennex Jagoo made some great saves to keep the game tied until 10 minutes into the period when Barber would score to make it 4-3 Sting. Barber would add another goal to complete his hat trick 2 minutes later to round out the scoring for the game. DeGurse and White each scored once while assists were recorded by DeGurse(3), Spencer Vandenboom, Greg Ross, MacKinnon, Monkhouse and White.
The team had some time to take in the Western Fair and enjoy a team dinner as they had 5 hours to kill before their final game of the day. A win would put them in a 3-way tiebraker atop their group. Unfortunately, already playing 2 games and being up since 6 am was not conducive to coming up with a strong game at 7:45pm and the boys had very little energy left for their game against Sun County.
The Sting would battle hard and some great goaltending from Jagoo helped keep the score just 2-1 in favour of the Panthers until midway through the second period. The boys just ran out of gas in the third and the game ended 8-2. Riddell and Monkhouse would get the Sting goals with White earning an assist.
The entire team can be proud of their effort over the weekend and judging by the effort everyone put forth the boys can look forward to a very successful season of AAA hockey.