Hespeler Shamrocks record second consecutive victory
CAMBRIDGE – After scoring 10 goals in their previous Provincial Junior Hockey League outing, the Hespeler Shamrocks rode a single goal to victory over the Tavistock Braves Sunday at the Hespeler Memorial Arena.
Mathew Styka’s second-period goal held up for a 1-0 victory for the Shamrocks while Liam Nelson and Kaiden Gignac assisted on the goal.
David Hanley stopped 31 shots to get the shutout in the Hespeler net. His teammates had 45 shots on the Tavistock goal guarded by Liam O’Leary.
The game featured a single minor penalty called with less than three minutes to go in the third period and Tavistock didn’t score on the game’s lone power play.
The win marked the second time this season the Shamrocks had won two consecutive games. The other time was in September when they defeated Tavistock 2-1 and Norwich 3-2 in a pair of home games. The current back-to-back wins also came against Norwich and Tavistock as they dropped Norwich 10-4 Saturday at Norwich.
Sunday’s game was also a playoff preview as the Shamrocks, with a 12-26-2-0 (W-L-OTL-T) record, are locked into a sixth-place finish in the Doherty Division and are to face third-place Tavistock (22-15-1-2) in the divisional quarter-finals.
However, Hespeler has two games to go in its regular season as the Shamrocks are to complete their regular season with a home-and-home weekend against the first-place New Hamburg Firebirds (31-7-2-0). They’re to play Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Wilmot Recreation Complex in Baden and Sunday at 3:30 p.m. at the Hespeler Memorial Arena. A win in either of the games will clinch first place for the Firebirds and give them a bye in the quarter-finals.
- Guelph Sports Journal