Falcons sweep Junior Canadians; Canucks top Regals
The St. Catharines Falcons completed a sweep of the Welland Junior Canadians in emphatic fashion with an 11-0 win at the Welland Arena Tuesday night.
The Falcons take the best-of-seven Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League, Golden Horseshoe Conference quarter-final series 4-0 and now advance to the semifinals, most likely versus the Hamilton Kilty B’s. Hamilton leads Fort Erie 3-0 in that series and can wrap up the sweep Wednesday in Fort Erie.
The Falcons dominated, leading 4-0 after one period and 5-0 after two before netting six goals in the final 20 minutes.
“It was the best game we played in the series and maybe one of the best we played in the entire year from start to finish,” St. Catharines coach/general manager Frank Girhiny said. “In all three parts of the ice, we were good and effective. We were good on the power play and our penalty kill was strong.”
The Falcons had taken the first three games of the series, but Girhiny was certain the club hadn’t played their best.
“I really thought our boys played the game the right way. It was what we were looking for. After our last game, I was excited to see our how our boys were going to play to close out the series and I was very pleased with how we finished it off.”
Carson Edwardson and Noah Solinger each had three goals for the Falcons while Adam Pys, Nicholas Boehmer, Andrew Somerville, Christian Girhiny and Xavier Drummond added singles. Jacob Roach chipped in with five assists.
Jack McGovern made 18 saves for the shutout.
The loss ended a dismal season for the Junior Canadians who dropped their final 20 regular season games before being swept.
The Falcons now have some time off before their semifinal series which is tentatively slated to start Friday, March 15 in St. Catharines.
“We’re going to be going up against Hamilton and we have a pretty good feel for them,” Girhiny said. “We played them seven games last year and this year we have had some great games with them. We have a really good sense of what they do.
“I think the time off will be really good for our guys. We can regroup and refocused and then we will be able to implement some type of systems that maybe Hamilton hasn’t seen from us all year. It will allow us time to work on those.”
The Kilty B’s gave the Falcons all they could handle this season, winning three of their six matchups.
“We’re not taking this for granted,” Girhiny said. “They beat us a few times this year and they’re a very good team. They’re well coached and well prepared and we have to match that or we’re going to be seeing them advance to the finals if we’re not willing to do that.”
Canucks 7 Regals 4
Dillon Hill and Ben Evans each had two goals as the Niagara Falls Canucks topped the Lockport Regals 7-4 to take a 3-0 lead in their series.
The Canucks can complete the sweep Wednesday in Lockport.
Mitch Mendonca, Nicholas Prestia and David D’Agostino also scored for the Canucks.
Todd Smith had two goals, Tim Lopez and Erich Thur one each for the Regals.
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