Sarnia Nearly Closes Gap, Loses To Saginaw 2-1
By Carl Chimenti
In a defensive struggle, the Saginaw Spirit nipped Sarnia Sting 2-1, Saturday night, at the Dow Event Center. It was the first road game for the Sting in this young season and they gave it everything they had, but fell one goal short.
Spirit goaltender Andrew Oke stopped 24 of 25 shots, including a break-away from Zach Filak with five minutes left to play in regulation. Oke was voted the third the third star of the contest. Sting netminder Nick Surzycia deserved a better fate as he put out a tremendous effort, including stopping two great Spirit scoring chances with less than a minute to play in both the first and second periods. Surzycia totaled 28 saves on 30 shots. All the scoring came in the second period. Joey Willis and Jacob Cloutier, both scored their first goals of the season with Cloutier’s marker ending up as the winning goal, and he was named first star. Willis was selected as the second star. Tyson Doucette scored the lone goal for Sarnia, his team leading third goal of the season, with both Sean Doherty and Roman Kukumberg assisting on the scoring play. In a very evenly played first period, things heated up in the last two minutes with the best scoring chance coming following a Sarnia turnover, that allowed Spirit forward Matyas Sapovaliv with a partial break-away, but like last night, Surzycia made a spectacular save to keep the game scoreless.
The Sting had a couple of great chances in the final minute, but Oke was able to come up with the saves he needed as the period came to a scoreless end, with both teams registering nine shots each. The Sting did have two power-play chances, but failed to convert. Saginaw scored the first two goals less than three minutes apart in the second period, but Sarnia got one back to slice the lead to 2-1. Willis opened up the scoring from Hunter Haight and Calem Mangone at 9:38 and Cloutier followed that up with what turned out to be the winning goal from Valentin Zhugin and Luke McNamara at 11:52. The Sting came back as Doucette scored at 15:21. It was a great all-round effort, as Doucette picked up the puck in his own zone and was able to carry it to center ice, only to lose it, but he managed to come up with the puck in the Saginaw end and fired it past Oke on his far side. The goal is one short from his yearly total of four goals last season. Sarnia had a couple more chances with the man-advantage, but once again they could not score. Saginaw was slightly better on the shot clock, in the middle frame 10-8. Saginaw ended up out-shooting Sarnia 30-25. Both teams failed to click on the power-play with Sarnia 0/4 and Saginaw 0/2.
