Falcons come back to win

The visiting St. Catharines Falcons scored four unanswered goals, the first two on the power play, and doubled the Niagara Falls Canucks 4-2.

Sunday night’s come-from-behind victory, before an announced crowd of 275 at Gale Centre, was the Falcons’ second in a row over the Canucks and improved the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League team’s record to 3-1.

Lucas Smilsky, with two goals; Tanner Ferreira and Hayden Broomhead, each on the power play; scored for St. Catharines, which blanked the Niagara Falls 6-0 in the opening game of the home-and-home series Friday night at Jack Gatecliff Arena.

Matthew Caruso, with the Canucks enjoying a man advantage; and Ryan Mooney replied for Niagara Falls, now 2-2 in league play.

The Canucks outshot their visitors 37-32, but the Falcons were the better of the two teams on special teams. St. Catharines finished the game 2-for-6 on the power play; Niagara Falls, 1-for9.

Next up for the Canucks is a 7:07 p.m. puck drop on road Thursday versus the Thorold Blackhawks,

0-3-1.

St. Catharines is home to the Welland Jr. Canadians the following night starting at 7 p.m.

Jr. Canadians 7, Panthers 1

At Welland, the Jr. Canadians scored six unanswered goals to take the first skirmish in this season’s Battle of Quaker Road.

Alexander Dameski, with two; Anthony Grigg, Brendan Rylott, Matthew Giannini, Tanner McEachern and Noah Blakely scored for Welland, 2-1-1-0.

Replying for the Pelham, 1-3; was Bailey Stumpo.

Shots on goal favoured the Jr. Canadians by 37-26 margin.

Welland went 3-on-8 on the power play, while Pelham was blanked by Jr. Canadians goaltender Charles Grimard on seven man-advantage opportunities.

Caledonia 7, Panthers 3

At Caledonia, Sean O’Brien scored three goals and collected an assist and the four-time defending Golden Horseshoe Conference champions defeated Pelham to open the season 3-0.

Mark Bzowery, T.J. Hughes, Eddie Schulz and Matt Weston rounded out the scoring for the Corvairs who outshot the Panthers 42-21.

Jake Herrberg, with two goals, and Francesco Gigliotti replied for Pelham.

Welland native Brandon McCorriston, who spent the past three seasons with the Jr. Canadians, made 18 saves to earn his third victory of the season.

Sam Dallas stopped 35 shots between the pipes for the Panthers.

Caledonia finished Saturday night’s game 3-for-9 on the power play; Pelham, 3-for-7.

Meteors 4, Regals 3

At Fort Erie, Drew Passero scored two goals and Doyle Groulx and Mike Masotti one each as the Meteors edged Buffalo in a battle of the border for their first win of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League season.

Michael Sokol, Shawn Koss and Jaco Santarelli, with 42 seconds remaining in regulation, scored for the Regals, who are off to a 0-3 start.

Tyler Szczepaniak, two goals on 17 shots; and Jacob Hearne, one goal on eight shots; shared goaltending duties for the Meteors, with Hearne earning the win.

Fort Erie, 1-2; outshot Buffalo 34-25 and each team went 0-for6 on the power play.

Avalanche 9, Blackhawks 5

At Ancaster, the host Avalanche defeated Thorold to improve to 2-1 under new head coach Ken Peroff.

The Blackhawks, whose new coach Scott Barnes is also the team’s owner, fell to 0-3-1-0 on the year.

Goals were scored in streaks. After Ancaster jumped out to a 3-0 lead, Thorold went up 4-3, only to see the Avalanche reply with three of their own.

Griffen Fox’s second of the night for the ’Hawks cut the deficit to 6-5, but that was as close as Thorold would get as Ancaster added three insurance goals to round out the scoring.

Trevor Neumann, Blair Jenkins, Matthew Chard also scored for the ’Hawks, who were outshot 35-27.

Thorold went 2-for-6 with a man advantage; Ancaster, 1-for-3.