Hespeler Shamrocks close regular season with loss
CAMBRIDGE – Hespeler Shamrocks wrapped up their Provincial Junior Hockey League regular season with a 5-2 loss to the New Hamburg Firebirds Sunday at the Hespeler Memorial Arena.
The Shamrocks finished in sixth place in the Doherty Division at 12-28-2-0 (W-L-OTL-T) while the Firebirds were first at 33-7-2-0. Those finishing positions were known before the game.
New Hamburg led 2-1 at the end of the first period and 4-1 after the second.
Justin George and Jett Spark scored the goals for Hespeler while single assists were recorded by Gavin Logher, Ryan Fraser, Derek Taylor and Thomas Giffin.
Scoring a goal apiece for New Hamburg were Tyler Reid, Jack Nell, Cohen Van Zuilen, Kyle Kraemer and Justin McManus. Anthony Pede and Owen Sculthorp each had two assists while Josh Soulliere, Brendan George, Jake Thompson, Matt Domm, Reid and Kraemer had one apiece.
The Firebirds outshot the Shamrocks 33-30 despite being outshot 13-8 in the first period. Both teams had three power plays with New Hamburg getting the lone power-play goal of the game.
The Shamrocks are to play the third-place Tavistock Braves (23-16-1-2) in the best-of-seven quarter-finals while New Hamburg gets a bye in the opening round due to the division having seven teams.
Hespeler and Tavistock met seven times during the regular season with the Braves winning five of the matches.
The Shamrocks won the first and seventh games of the regular-season series, both at the Hespeler Memorial Arena. They won 2-1 Sept. 17 and 1-0 Feb. 18.
The Braves won the other five including a pair of wins at Hespeler — 2-1 Dec. 10 and 4-3 Jan. 14. The other three wins came at the Tavistock and District Recreation Centre as they prevailed 3-1 Nov. 24, 5-1 Dec. 22 and 5-2 Jan. 19.
The quarter-final is to start at Hespeler Thursday at 8:30 p.m. Game 2 is to be played at Tavistock Friday at 7:30 p.m. with Game 3 set to go at Hespeler March 3 at 3:30 p.m.
Games 4 and 5 are to be played at Tavistock with Game 4 slated for March 6 at 7:30 p.m. and Game 5, if it’s needed, to go March 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Games 6 is slated for March 10 at Hespeler at 3:30 p.m. and Game 7 is scheduled to be played at Tavistock at 7:30 p.m. Those two games will be played only if they’re necessary.
- Guelph Sports Journal