‘Hawks lose playoff opener

The Niagara Riverhawks travelled to Glanbrook for Game one of their best-of-seven quarterfinal series in Provincial Junior Hockey League action Wednesday night but came up short in a 4 -0 loss to the Rangers.

It didn’t take Glanbrook long to get on the board as Jeff May scored at the 17-second mark of the opening frame.

Kaeton Kewley extended the Rangers’ lead with a goal at 4:49 followed by May’s second of the game with 21 seconds remaining in the first period and the Riverhawks found themselves trailing 3-0 after one period of play.

Shots were even at 11 apiece after the first.

Glanbrook outshot the RiverHawks 21-9 in the second period but manged only one goal by Noah Matteson to extend their lead to 4-0 after 2 periods.

The third period was scoreless and was marred with penalties, including a match penalty for kicking to Glanbrook’s Cosmo Amore.

The Riverhawks failed to convert on the five-minute man advantage.

Rangers outshot the RiverHawks 43-29 overall with Daniel Kocsis making 39 stops in the loss.

Neither team was successful on the power play as Niagara went 0-for-3 and Glanbrook was 0-for-2 with the man advantage.

“We were a little tentative to start the game and dug ourselves in a hole early” Niagara head coach Rob DeGiuli said.

“After the first we settled down and played better,

but we weren’t able to take advantage of the five-minute power play in the third which would have helped us.”

Game 2 was last night at Gale Centre and Saturday night’s third game will also be in Niagara Falls. Faceoff for both games in 7:30 p.m.

We were a little tentative to start the game and dug ourselves in a hole early.” Niagara head coach Rob DeGiuli