LANTZ: It was a fight for positioning for the Under-16 division quarterfinals on Friday at the Cleve’s Source for Sports East Coast Ice Jam.
The Under-16 division, along with the U-15 division, had their games played at ice Pad B and the Keith Miller Arena in the East Hants Sportsplex. The games played were Thursday and Friday in Lantz.
In the three games that The Laker News covered, they were close contests that saw lots of end-to-end action and great playing and goaltending that was superb and made the games even closer.
The Kings Hockey club, with players from Beaver Bank, Fall River, and East Hants on the roster; the Moncton Thunderbirds (on Thursday); and the Basin Armada who have players from Fall River suiting up for them were victorious in the games we covered in U-16.
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A three-goal second period burst open a close 1-0 game between the Kings and Cape Breton Jets in Ice Pad B.
Dylan Probert; Braden Martin; and Nic MacIntyre scored the three unanswered tallies in the middle stanza to give the Kings a 4-0 lead after two periods.
Chace Munden in the first and Joel Verge in the third period after Josh Hollett forechecked and stole the puck from the Jets goalie and quickly found Verge who tipped it into the net.
Hollett had two assists in the game.
Nolan McLauchlan, who The Laker News sponsors, stood tall in net stopping all 15 shots he faced.
The Kings fired almost 40 shots on Cape Breton goalie Andrew Shimon.
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On Thursday afternoon, the Fundy Thunder from the Truro area put in a valiant effort, but it was the Moncton Thunderbirds winning the game.
However, if it wasn’t for goalie Zack David, the Thunderbirds may have been in trouble.
He stopped a two on one between Mathus George and Will Singer with a highlight reel pad save, and that was the story of the game for the opportunities Fundy had on him.
Jake Thorne was between the pipes for the Thunder.
Daniel Vandenberg attempted to setup a pair of scoring chances, but the Thunderbirds made quick work of those and killed the scoring threats.
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Against the Western Rebels, the Armada from Bedford were led by two of their players from the Riverlakes region.
Liam Conlon pushed home a loose puck at the side of the Rebels net out of the goalies range to put the Armada ahead 2-1. It turned out to be the game winner.
The Armada trailed 1-0 entering the third period after the PEI team from the Western PEI area scored in the second period.
The come back started when Alex Damczyk, from Fall River, raced in on the Rebels goalie and got his shot past the netminder for a 1-1 tie.
Conlon’s heroics came after a shot on goal by Chris Brill, and he was there not entirely tied up by the Western defender in front of Coby Maund, the PEI goalie.
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Espen Simensen; Sam Cowan; Jaxon Prior earned assists for the Armada.
Maund played a stellar game to keep the game close, but just came out on the wrong end of the game result.
However, Maund and her Rebels will get to try to assert revenge as they play the Armada in the quarterfinal at the HRM 4-Pad in Bedford. Game time is 5 p.m.
It is one of the four U-16 division quarterfinals happening all close to the same time on the four ice surfaces.
Follow along for playoff round action results at: www.icejam.ca and live-stream on High Button Sports.
