After a couple of difficult games against good teams from Chatham and London, the St. Thomas Junior Stars Novice Select team started to show signs of good things to come.
Saturday’s game against the Chatham Maroons saw our first game where our team scored 3 goals. The first goal came with a bit over a minute to go in the first period by the hands of #5 Ethan Hawes who put in a juicy rebound left by the Chatham goalie after a slap shot by #16 Tyler Johnston. #9 Jeffrey Carr also registered an assist on the first goal. The second scorer was #18 Ethan Bradley for his first of the season with about 3 minutes to go in the second period and the third goal was put in the net by #10 Nathan Carmichael with also his first of the season assisted by #8 Deven VanLingen. In spite of the defensive heroics by #13 Ethan Georgijev and #6 Mile Ostojic, the Stars could not stop the numerous rushes of the Maroons’ offensive who ended up winning the game.
Sunday’s game against North London was a hard fought battle from puck drop. The kids showed a lot of determination at both ends of the ice and their efforts gave fruit almost at the end of the first period when #18 Ethan Bradley ringed the inside post of the net with a slap shot from the point for his second goal of the weekend. #11 Jared Parkin registered an assist on the goal. This time the Stars defense was reinforced with #2 Kyle Wiebe who also had some help from #17 Cameron Solomway, #7 Lucas Glanville and #15 Liam Armstrong.
Our goalies, #35 Rhett Devries and #1 Andrew Valdez, did a good job keeping the game within reach but could not avoid the defeat by the Londoner team.
All in all, the teams displayed lots of improvements in keeping their position and fighting for the puck.
Good job team!