Soo Greyhounds Hand Sarnia 7-3 Loss
By Carl Chimenti
The Sarnia Sting (26-17-4-2) were dealt a second straight road loss as they fell to the Soo Greyhounds (16-22-8-5) 7-3, Sunday afternoon at the GFL Memorial Gardens.
The loss ended a three game Northern Ontario trek, with the Sting posting a 1-2 record.
Easton Wainwright, Lukas Fischer and Christian Kyrou (Dallas Stars) scored for the Sting.
Ryan Mast (Boston Bruins) had one assist in his milestone 150th game played in the Ontario Hockey League.
The game turned physical in the final period with lots of scrums, along with numerous pushing and shoving between the two teams. Both the Soo and the Sting combined for 14 minutes of minor penalties and five misconduct penalties in the final twenty minutes. Even the head coaches had a heated exchange of words with one another.
Overall, the Greyhounds out-shot the Sting 29-28.
The Greyhounds opened up the scoring as Caleb Van De Ven was credited with his first career OHL goal after the puck was deflected off a Sarnia player in front at 3:08 with assists going to both Julian Fantino and Connor Clattenburg. Sarnia rallied back scoring twice in a 41 second span. Mast did most of the work on the first Sting goal, cycling the puck from behind the net to the half wall, he than feed a pass to Wainwright and Wainwright wasted no time putting the puck past Soo goaltender Charlie Schenkel for his seventh goal of the year at 6:38. Del Mastro was credited with the second assist. Moments later with Sarnia winning the draw, the puck came back to Fischer and his shot from the point had eyes, as he scored his third of the season at 7:19, with the lone assist going to Vilmanis. Sarnia out-shot the Soo 12-6, with both teams failing to convert on their only power-play opportunity in the opening period.
The second period was just a poor defensive effort by the Sting as the Greyhounds scored four goals to grab a 5-3 lead. Kalvyn Watson from Marco Mignosa tied the game at 4:28, but the Sting on an unassisted goal from Kyrou, his 14th seized the lead back at 8:12. The Soo dominated from there and capitalized scoring three straight goals from Fantino, Brenden Sirizzotti and Mignosa in just over five minutes.
