Weekend junior B wrapup: Meteors, Falcons go up 2-0
The Fort Erie Meteors and St. Catharines Rankin Construction Falcons both won Sunday night to take 2-0 leads in their respective Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League best-of-seven semifinal series.
John Lloyd made 31 saves as the Mets blanked the Caledonia Corvairs 3-0 in Caledonia while Cam Lowe broke a 3-3 tie with a goal at 17:02 of the third period as the Falcons edged the Brantford Titans 4-3 in Brantford.
In Caledonia, Chris Reid broke a scoreless deadlock after two periods with his second goal in as many nights less than two minutes into the third.
Aiden Zimmerman followed with his second of the playoffs six minutes in before Tate Donald wrapped things up at 19:45.
Fort Erie general manager/coach Nik Passero was pleased with the effort.
“I think we defended pretty hard,” he said. “They’re still very good offensively, they get their chances. John played a great game and made some huge saves, a couple breakaway saves on some bad turnovers, but I thought overall a really good, tight game.
“It was a good playoff atmosphere.”
The Meteors were without suspended defenceman Derek Smyth (one of two) and suspended forward Kyle Adamo (one of two).
Passero said the Mets did not have to make any adjustments despite playing without two of their key players.
“I don’t think so, not in our team philosophy anyway. Just next man up and some guys got some chances that they haven’t gotten.”
The Meteors can go up 3-0 with a win at home Tuesday, but Passero isn’t taking anything for granted.
“We were up 2-0 in the first round and lost the next two so I think if any team knows that it’s not over it’s us,” he said.
At Brantford, the Titans grabbed a 2-1 lead after one period on goals by Ethan Szabo and Adam Saipan while Treyson Dewar replied for the Falcons.
Rookie Easton Poirier tied the game at 2-2 with a goal halfway through the second before Ally Mostafaie netted his third of the post-season to put the Falcons up 3-2 with six minutes to play.
The Falcons lead was short-lived as Zachary Gratton scored 24 seconds later to even the score at 3-3, setting the stage for Lowe’s winner.
Falcons president of hockey operations and head coach Tyler Bielby weighed in with his thoughts.
“I thought we retained possession for probably the majority of the game. We were pretty happy with our game, but we didn’t bear down on our chances early enough and it made for a tighter game. That’s playoff hockey. That’s why we’ve got to be ready to go every shift.
“Just happy with the way the guys finished the game. Easy on the road to fold up after they tied it up late but we just went down and took care of business. So a good team win.”
Brantford coach Dan Fitzgerald felt with a break or two the outcome may have been different.
“I thought we played well enough to win, but in the end a couple mistakes ended up in our net and that was the difference,” he said. “We are a resilient group and showed that a number of times tonight. We’ll look to lean on that resiliency tomorrow. I have a lot of faith in this group.”
St. Catharines can take a 3-0 stranglehold on the series with a victory at home Monday.
“We’re playing a team that we know can rattle off a few wins in a row against good teams,” Bielby said. “So we have to continue to be ready and start on time. They’ll play for their lives and we have to find a way to make sure we’re ready to go in the first period.”
Bielby feels the team still has a few areas of their game to tidy following two weeks off.
“Some little details in our structure, we can we can tell that we had some time off, but I’m for the most part really happy with the work ethic and I know that they’ll keep working and have the will to compete as we clean up those details.”
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