Hall hometown hero with OT winner
With one quick flick of his wrist, Blake Hall sent the Fort Erie Meteors into the win column in arguably their most important game of the season.
The 21-year-old Fort Erie native snapped a shot from the slot past goaltender Brandon Abbott 1:59 into overtime as the Meteors edged the St. Marys Lincolns 2-1 before 1,725 fans Saturday night at the Fort Erie Leisureplex.
The win evens the Meteors record at 1-1 in the Sutherland Cup round-robin series following a 6-1 loss Friday night in Listowel.
The Lincolns are 0-1 and play host to the Cyclones (1-0) Sunday night.
“It’s huge,” Hall said of the winner. “Loved to get that one for the crowd. They were going crazy all night.”
The goal came on the power play, only the fourth minor penalty called in the game.
“(Jaden) Flora gave me a nice pass in the slot and I found a way to get it upstairs,” Hall said of his winner.
“I think we had a good all round game from start to finish, to be honest. I think we outplayed them in the second and couldn’t bury it and it was nice to finally get one.”
Meteors associate coach Anthony Passero was thrilled for the hometown hero, who spent the last two seasons in the Central Canada Hockey League.
“Definitely not surprised, no one deserves it more than him,” Passero said. “Risky move him coming back here in August in his 20-year-old year with a team that didn’t have many returners and all year he’s been getting rewarded for it.
“Just a good guy on and off the ice and to see that puck go high and hard, we felt like his parents on the bench jumping up and down. No one deserves it more than him.”
The win was the first in Sutherland Cup history for the Meteors.
“This is all so surreal still for us,” Passero said. “It was a big puck to get. One of the guys asked me in the room the rules (for overtime) and I didn’t know. We’ve never been here before.
“It almost doesn’t make sense. You look at the crowd — people were here lined up at noon today getting tickets — it’s just something you never thought this town was going to do. Because of guys like Blake Hall coming home and really dialling into what he wanted to do with this program, it kind of speaks magnitudes.”
The Mets once again did a superb job of putting a loss in their rear view mirror and didn’t appear one bit out of gas despite playing on consecutive nights.
“I think the adrenaline just runs through,” Passero said. “It (fatigue) might be in the back of your mind but we’re off until Wednesday. We had long bus ride last night and played 60 today.
“We’re here for a reason. It’s April 20 and these guys are in good shape and they’re going to keep going until someone tells them they can’t.”
Following a scoreless first period, the Lincolns took a 1-0 lead when Chase MacQueen-Spence scored seven minutes into the second. Hunter Coley replied for the Mets about 10 minutes later to even the score at 1-1.
The Mets outshot the Lincolns 8-6 in a scoreless third period as Abbott came up with a handful of outstanding saves to send the game into overtime.
Metscellaneous: Andrew MacNeil, Nolan Stickland, Grant Spada and Aiden Zimmerman did not dress for the Meteors.
STATS PACK
Meteors 2 Lincolns 1 OT
Fort Erie Meteors forward Blake Hall with the OT winner.
Fort Erie Meteors: Hall (5); Hunter Coley (5).
St. Marys Lincolns: Chase MacQueen-Spence (14).
Game stats: Shots on goal: By Fort Erie on Brandon Abbott (29), by St Marys on Charlie Burns (25); Power plays: Fort Erie St. Marys; Penalty minutes: Fort Erie 1/2, St. Marys 0/0.
Attendance: 1,725
Up next: The Meteors host Listowel Wednesday, April 24 at 7 p.m. and travel to St. Marys Friday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. to conclude the round-robin.
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