Mets, ’Hawks nearly score upsets
On any given Sunday, and Saturday night for that matter.
Further proof there’s more parity than ever in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Golden Horseshoe Conference was ample when two upstarts nearly scored upsets.
Both the Fort Erie Meteors, eighth in the nine-team conference, and the Thorold Blackhawks, the No. 5 seed, earned consolation points in overtime losses to teams with records well above .500.
Fort Erie was 1:55 away from a win against the visiting Caledonia Corvairs, the top team in the conference as well as in the 26-team junior B league.
Adam Craievich scored at the 1:23-minute mark of the first overtime period to give the Corvairs a 4-3 victory.
At Ancaster, Dirk Stadig failed to score on a penalty shot 3:15 into the second overtime, but teammate Caelan McPhee found the back of the net 1:12 later to give the host Avalanche a 2-1 victory over Thorold.
Daniel Rocco, for the Blackhawks, and Kyle Kennery, Ancaster, scored goals in regulation.
Shots favoured Thorold by a 41-35 margin, and neither team was able to generate any offence with a man advantage. The Blackhawks finished the game 0-for-5 on the power play; the Avalanche, 0-for-1.
Ancaster improved to 13-3 with the come-from-behind victory. Thorold fell to 8-10-1-1.
Corvairs 4, Meteors 3 OT
At Fort Erie, visiting Caledonia scored two unanswered goals for its third victory in a row to move back into first place in the Golden Horseshoe.
Griffin Roubos, on the power play; and Matt Watson put the Corvairs up 2-0 before Brady Lee, Marco Lariccia and Drew Passero replied with evenstrength markers for the Meteors.
Owen Lane scored for Caledonia late in the third period to force overtime.
Fort Erie’s Jacob Hearne made 45 saves as the Corvairs outshot their hosts 49-23 improving to 15-2-0-1 in league play.
The 15-6 Niagara Falls Canucks, winners of five in a row and 9-2 victors over the Buffalo Regals Friday night, trail Caledonia by a single point but the Corvairs have three games in hand.
Three points back of Caledonia are the St. Catharines Falcons, at 13-40-2.
St. Ca th arin es defeated the Welland Jr. Canadians 12-2 in other action Friday night.
Meteors 4, Panthers 4 2 OT
At Pelham, Mike Masotti scored two goals 32 seconds apart with 1:04 remaining in regulation as visiting Fort Erie overcome a 3-0 deficit earning its first tie of the season.
Pelham, 7-11-1-1, jumped out to a seemingly commanding lead on goals from Adam Scholz, on the power play; Francesco Gigliotti and Noah Caperchione before Marco Lariccia put the Meteors on the scoreboard with a power-play goal.
Jared Hill’s even-strength marker inflated Pelham’s cushion back up to three, but Fort Erie went on a threegoal run of its own. Alex McAteer and Masotti, twice, found the back of the net for the Meteors, 5-12-1-1.
Fort Erie outshot the Panthers 5548 in Sunday’s back-and-forth matinee at Pelham Arena.
Each team scored with a man advantage with the Meteors going for 1-for-5 on the power play and the Panthers 1-for-3.
Welland, 5-12-1-1, hosted Ancaster Sunday night.
Results were unavailable at press time, but a summary is posted online at stcatharinesstandard.ca, niagarafallsreview.ca and wellandtribune. ca. Ancaster opened the season series with a 6-5 victory on home ice Oct. 26.