Jan 30, 2023 | Brendan Magee | 94 views
Great start but the wheels fall off in 10-3 loss to Defenders
The U9T1 team faced off against the Drayton Defenders on Sunday as part of Hockey Days in Listowel. A good start was important if the team wanted any chance of coming away with a win. From the opening faceoff the Cycs were all over them and Tyce Passmore would strike first on an unassisted effort giving the home side an early lead. Ian Magee would squeek one past the goalie minutes later but it would be called off as the ref lost site of the puck. Magee would extend the lead to two with less than a minute left beating the goalie with a solo effort.
I'm not sure the team had played a better period all year and took a 2-0 lead to the first intermission. The start of the period was more of the same with the Cycs controlling the play but unable to add another tally. Drayton would get on the board mid way through and would add 3 more in the span of 2 minutes to take a 4-2 lead. The Cycs had gotten away from the ferocious forecheck in the first half of the game that was working and once the Defenders got time and space they made the home team pay adding 2 more before the 2nd period would end taking a 6-2 lead to the break.
Drayton would score a few minutes into the 3rd before Listowel would score a goal that you'd typically see at much older levels. Maddox Birk would chip the puck at the Cycs blueline to his linemate Magee who drove wide into the zone, curled up and hit a wide open Hunter Adamson in the slot who would one time it home. These are things we've been working on in practice and it was great to see the boys perfect it in a game situation! Drayton was too strong this day and this was as close as the boys in red would come, the final score 10-3.
Although the score was lopsided the coach's were happy to see a lot of what we had been working on come out in the game. Hunter Adamson picked up the Cycs chain for the impact player of the game, congrats Hunter!
The U9T1 team is back in action on Wednesday night when they travel to Mitchell to play their highway 23 rival.