The Leamington Flyers remain unbeaten with wins over Mississauga and Georgetown this past week.
On Thursday, September 17, the Flyers faced a very different Mississauga Chargers team and came away with a 5-3 win. The two teams battled hard throughout the contest and with neither surrendering goals easily. For the Flyers it meant working hard to not only control the play but to score and maintain a slim lead.
Much of the game’s difference was Chargers’ goalie James Meredith who stopped 41 of the Flyers’ 45 scoring attempts. Leamington native Tomas Kniaziew turned aside 32 shots in his Flyers’ debut.
Flyers GM/head coach Dale Mitchell said, “We got the job done result-wise. It’s nice to see some scoring happening through our depth players at the moment.”
Thursday’s game was a rather even contest throughout. Mississauga opened the scoring at 9:40 when Frank Lecce’s left side shot eluded Kniaziew. However, the Flyers didn’t wait long to knot the score. At 11:59, Drew Ferenc and Tyler McGuire combined with Brody Brown, who deftly tipped in a rebound while on Meredith’s doorstep.
The Flyers scored just seven seconds into their first powerplay of the game at 14:55 as Ashton Darocy slipped a pass to Brendan Cooke, who immediately returned it to Darocy for a screen shot that eluded Meredith.
Near the midway point of the second, Jordan Maine set up Griffin Grundner’s left side shot. Darocy gobbled up the rebound for a 3-1 lead.
Despite the two-goal deficit, the Chargers applied pressure and closed the gap when Ethan Holt’s rocket found the back of the Flyers’ net at 18:22.
Midway through the third, a crosschecking penalty to a Chargers’ player gave the Flyers some incentive to increase their lead.
Like their previous powerplay, the Flyers wasted little time in tabbing a goal. At 10:40, Josh Cleary and Grundner teamed up with Darocy who potted his hattrick goal while at the edge of the crease. That tally gave the Flyers a two-goal edge.
In the final minutes the Chargers pulled Meredith for an extra attacker and forward Luca Morano scored from the left lane to make it 4-3. Seconds after the final minute of play was announced, Grundner and Darocy sent Jak Thiessen alone down the ice to easily deposit an empty-net goal and seal the 5-3 victory.
On Saturday in Georgetown the Flyers wasted little time in asserting a lead. Grundner partnered with Thiessen, whose left side tap-in came at 1:32 of the first. The Flyers’ offense blitzed for two tallies in a short span starting at 9:13 when Reid Ashton tapped in Darocy’s rebound before Maine and Jack Josifovski set up Matthew Crawford’s tally from the doorstep 28 seconds later.
At 5:41 of the second, the Flyers had a goal challenged. It took the refs a good 10 minutes plus to determine that Jack Josifovski’s left side tap-in of Chase Pettipiece’s feed was indeed a good goal, giving them a 4-0 lead.
Georgetown responded less than one minute later, with the Flyers headed into the third holding a 4-1 edge.
The Flyers upped their lead at 3:49 when Ryan Kociuk blasted a goal from the right side.
Georgetown’s Owen Meli finished off the scoring with just under four minutes remaining as the Flyers held on for a 5-2 win.
“I still believe we give up too many chances against at the moment but Tomas Kniaziew was there to back stop us to those (two) victories”, said Mitchell after the game. “Thursday will be a big and exciting test for us versus Collingwood,”
The Flyers’ next home game is Thursday, September 24 when they host the Collingwood Blues at 7:10 pm.
