Avs, Corvairs keep pace

No one is flying away with the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Golden Horseshoe Conference, not even a team called the Falcons.

The Caledonia Corvairs and Ancaster Avalanche both kept pace with the St. Catharines Falcons with convincing victories on their home ice Saturday night.

Caledonia, 17- 3- 0- 1, blanked the Buffalo Regals 14- 0 to move into second place, one point behind the Falcons and one ahead of the Niagara Falls Canucks.

St. Catharines, 17- 4- 0- 2, and Niagara Falls, 16- 6- 0- 2, were both idle after seeing action the night before. The Falcons beat visiting Buffalo 6- 1 Friday night while the host Canucks dropped a 1- 0 decision to Ancaster in double overtime.

In their Saturday night game, the fourth- place Avalanche, 16- 5, tripled the visiting Pelham Panthers 9- 3 to move to within two points of the Canucks.

Ancaster has three games in hand on Niagara Falls.

In other Saturday night action in the nine- team conference, the visiting Welland Jr. Canadians edged the Fort Erie Meteors 3- 2.

Sunday night’s lone game had Welland, 9- 13- 1- 1 hosting Caledonia.

Results were not available at press time, but a summary is posted online at stcatharinesstandard. ca, niagarafallsreview. ca and wellandtribune. ca.

Corvairs 14, Regals 0

At Caledonia, Pierce Charleston made 18 saves for his third shutout of the season, and the fourtime defending Golden Horseshoe champions blanked Buffalo for the third time in as many starts this season.

Sean O’Brien, with three goals; Adam Craievich, Cal Davis and T. J. Hughes, two apiece; Jesse Barwell, Bobby Harrison, Owen Lane, Griffin Roubos and Eddie Schulz scored for Caledonia, which won its second in a row.

Buffalo, which was outshot 44- 18, fell to 1- 19- 0- 2.

The Corvairs finished the game 3- for- 3 on the power play, while shutting out the Regals on all six of their man- advantage opportunities.

Avalanche 9, Panthers 3

At Ancaster, the host Avalanche improved to 3- 0 in head- to- head play versus Pelham and won their second game in a row.

James Graydon and Yianni Skropolis each scored two goals to lead Ancaster, which outshot the Panthers 31- 30.

Nicholas Breault, Matthew Bridgwater, Lucas Croucher, Kyle Kennery and Dirk Stadig also found the back of the net for the Avs.

Matt Ruigrok, with two goals, and Zach Thompson replied for Pelham.

Ancaster went 0- for- 6 on the power play; the Panthers 1- for- 8.

Pelham has allowed nine goals in each of its losses to the Avalanche this season.

Meteors 3, Jr. Canadians 2

At Fort Erie, Noah Bollert, Alexander Dameski and Matthew Gianni each scored a goal and visiting Welland edged the Meteors for its second win in a row.

Cail Cirillo and Mike Masotti replied for Fort Erie, which fell to 1- 2 against the B’s in league play this season.

Shots on goal were 38- 34 in the Meteors’ favour.

Neither team scored with a man advantage. Fort Erie went 0- for- 2 and Welland 0- for- 3 on the power play.

Meteors 2, Panthers 1 2OT

At Pelham, a game in which scoring started 1: 03 into the opening period didn’t end until there was 2: 05 remaining in the second, and final, overtime.

That’s when Marco Lariccia beat Panthers netminder Nicholas Kidd to keep visiting Fort Erie undefeated against Pelham this season. The Meteors posted a win and skated to a tie in the first two meetings.

Thomas Young opened the scoring for the Panthers early the first period, with Alex McAteer forcing overtime at the 3: 04 mark of the second period.

Pelham outshot Fort Erie 40- 37 and finished the game 0- for- 7 on the power play. The Meteors went 0- for- 6 with a man advantage.