Otago sides crash to four away losses
THE long weekend was a sorry one for Otago teams which lost all four of their national league away matches.
The Stampede lost twice to the West Auckland Admirals while Dunedin Thunder went down in both clashes against the Canterbury Red Devils.
The Thunder almost pulled off a brilliant comeback in its first match on Saturday in Christchurch.
The side came back from being down 51 at the end of the second period to tie the scores at 66 and send the game to overtime.
A brilliant fivegoal second quarter in which
Paris Heyd,
Benjamin
Gavoille,
Charles Plaisir, Joe Orr and Dylan
Devlin scored put the visiting side in front with 10 minutes to play.
But Canterbury equalised in the final six minutes and sealed its win four minutes into overtime.
The match on Sunday was not nearly as even, as Canterbury piled on eight goals.
Heyd, Gavoille, Felipe Aguirre Landshoeft and Brandon Egli scored for Thunder in the loss.
The Stampede could not carry on its form from last season’s championship finals in its first outings of the new season, losing 52 and 63 in Auckland.
The Queenstown team started well in its first match on Saturday, Mike McRae scoring a firstperiod goal.
However, the Admirals hit back in the second half of the first stanza with two goals.
The Stampede made another good start when Stephen Johnston slotted a goal early in the second period to help put Queenstown one goal behind at 32 at the second break, but the Stampede let the game slip away in the final period, losing 52.
Things did not improve for the Stampede on Sunday, as the team let in two early goals in its second match.
Stephen Johnston scored to get the visiting side to 21 at the end of the first period.
The Stampede improved in the second period as Mike McRae and Kory Helowka scored to tie it up at 33, but the home team finished strongly to win 63.