The Lambton Jr. Sting Major Atom AAA team won their first game of the 2013 – 2014 season this past weekend. After starting the season 0 – 10, the team was eager to finally put one in the win column.
Offensively, the win was a total team effort with 8 different players getting on the score sheet, while defensively the team limited the Cyclones shots, giving goaltender Blake Foster a chance to win his first game of the season.
Lambton’s first win came against the Chatham-Kent Cyclones, on Sunday afternoon. The Jr. Sting found themselves up 1 – 0 just 5 minutes into the opening frame when centre Nate Highfield was hauled down while on a breakaway and was awarded a penalty shot. Highfield made no mistakes, taking the Cyclones goaltender on way, while tucking the puck in on the other. Unfortunately, the lead was short lived as Chatham would come back just 1:28 later to tie the game up at one.
The second period began with the Cyclones taking an early 2 – 1 lead on the powerplay but this ever resilient team would shut the door after that scoring the game’s next 6 goals. Derek Esselment would get things started midway through the second period when he scored shorthanded, from Ryder Nienhuis, while Andrew Lemieux would give the Jr. Sting a lead they would never relinquish on the powerplay from Anthony Bax and Nate Highfield.
Up 3 – 2 to start the third, Lambton found themselves up by 2 just minutes into the third when Derek Esselment scored his second of the game, on the powerplay. The Jr. Sting would than open up the flood gates scoring 3 times in just 4 minutes. Goal scorers included, defensemen, Wesley Brooks and Anthony Bax and centre Ryder Nienhuis. Assists on the goals were awarded to Ryder Nienhuis, Carter Viglasky, Caron Peer (2) and Andrew Lemieux.
The defensive corps of Anthony Bax, Wesley Brooks, Connor Nesbitt, Matthew Moore, Jake MacLean and Lucas deLorenzo were solid on the back end while goaltender Blake Foster made some solid saves to keep his team in it early on.
Now that the team has a win under their belt, they are hungry for more. This coming weekend they host their division rival from Windsor on Saturday and travel to Waterloo to take on the Wolves on Sunday.