Jan 24, 2019 | GeoffRead | 464 views
Hawks' Offence Powers Them to Victory
The West London Hawks Minor Bantam #27 faced off against the Oakridge Aeros #17 on a chilly night in the frigid confines of Oakridge arena on Sunday. The result was anything but frosty as the red hot Hawks seemingly summoned offence at will and downed the Aeros 6-3.
The Hawks came out like gangbusters in the first period, forechecking hard and peppering the net with shots. They were rewarded on the second shift of the game when #9 took a feed from Owen Worby and scored. Then, with just another 12 seconds off the clock, Callum Knapp made a nice solo dash up the middle and put a beauty of a shot in, shooting off his front foot a la Mark Messier. The Hawks were up 2-0.
Before the period was up, Cole Chick added a third marker harnessing a rebound and putting it home. The Hawks were off to the races.
The pace cooled somewhat in the second though as only the Hawks' Matt DiCicco managed to solve the Aeros' netminder on a backhand cutting through the slot. In a pattern that would be repeated though, DiCicco's goal was timely as the Aeros had just got on the board, and were in danger of picking up some momentum - DiCicco's tally put an end to that.
In the third this happened twice more. The Aeros scored 4:30 into the third; DiCicco scored again on a nice pass from Brendan Walsh; the Aeros got their third goal a couple of minutes later; the Hawks answered again with Worby picking up the goal this time on a pass from #9.
Defensively the Hawks let up a bit in the second and third, but the defensive corps of Jacob Grover and his partner Noah Weber as well as Pyper Baker with Liam Stewart had a good night. Stewart stood out with some good solid, smart play... until the very last shift of the game when he got into several misadventures but escaped unharmed.
Jack Churney had a solid night cruising the right wing and made several nice breakout passes up the middle to spring his centreman, Matt Hodgins. Hodgins had a highly effective game as well. Nathan Senese too had some jump in his step.
In net, Zach Read had a solid game and couldn't be faulted on the first two goals, one of which was a wacky deflection in front of the net. The last goal wasn't a beauty, but by then the game was salted away.
The game got a little physical at times as Pyper Baker got run over twice and a few Hawks got rubbed out on the boards. Unfortunately, the referee didn't seem to realize that body checks were illegal in the match and so let these plays go unpunished, which, as is always the case, made things worse. The end result for the Hawks was that Cole Chick sustained a concussion after taking what seemed like a relatively mild hit near the Hawks' bench. Chick's teammates all wish him a swift recovery.
The Hawks have a busy weekend coming up playing three games in three nights starting tomorrow night at Bostwick Arena.
Go Hawks go!