Nov 03, 2011 | Dan Culbert | 422 views
Team Play Leads to Win
The CRS - Contractors Rental Supply Midget 99ers carried the lessons learned from the weekend tournament back into league play with the result being a 5-0 victory over Stratford. After dropping a 7-6 decision to Stratford in their last meeting, the 99ers made no mistake in making a statement that this was not going to happen again last night.
The game did not start as planned, with the home team coming out flat the first couple of shifts as Stratford had the best chances in the first 90 seconds of the game. The line of Tyler Sheaffer, Matt General, and Larry Hill got things going with a good energy shift which seemed to give the entire team a spark and get the feet moving. The 99ers kept the pressure on but didn't opened the scoring until on a powerplay late in the first. Scott Smid took a feed from Hill and fired a shot through a screen which beat the Stratford goalie on the glove side to give the home team a 1-0 lead after the first.
General made it 2-0 with a quick release from high in the slot only 90 seconds into the 2nd with Jesse Stremler picking up an assist on the play. Jacob Ferreira made it 3-0 when his shot from the point found it's way in over the the glove hand of the visiting netminder 4 minutes later with Dakota Culbert picking up a helper on the play. Hill then made it 4-0 with just over a minute to go in the period to give Brantford a comfortable 4-0 lead heading into the locker room after 2 with General and RJ Huszczo picked up assists on the goal.
The team came out flat at the start of the 3rd, and the Culitons nearly capitalized only a few seconds into the period as the 99ers blew a backcheck and let a Stratford player cruise to the net unchecked and he just failed to capitalize on a backdoor tip. The team was able to overcome trouble as a couple of old habits began to creep into the 3rd period play as the 99ers took 16 minutes in penalties in the final 20 minutes. However, some solid goaltending by Ben Beechey in the period and especially while the team was down for an extended 5-3 early in the 3rd, kept the visitors from gaining any momentum. Hill made his presence felt again late in the game, as a good puck battle followed by a nice breakout pass by Huszczo sent Culbert and Hill away on a 2 on 1.
Hill drove the net distracting the goalie and being a decoy on the play as Culbert was able to find the net to close out the scoring with two and a half minutes to play. One last push with another powerplay with only 95 seconds left was turned aside by some good penalty killing and another good pad save by Beechey as he put the finishing touches on the shut-out.
The teams play a rematch game back in Stratford on Sunday.