Birmingham Unified blanks Stoney Creek, 10-0
The Birmingham Unified Kings came out on fire, scoring nine goals in the first period and rolling to a 10-0 win over the Stoney Creek Cougars Friday night.
Ben Catlin opened the scoring just 1:14 into the game when he stickhandled down the slot and deposited a backhanded shot into the net on the game’s first shot.
Catlin made it 2-0 on the Kings’ second shot when Carson Wood found him alone on the blue line, and Catlin got a clean breakaway from there, which he converted with 13:25 left in the first period.
The Kings seemingly couldn’t miss early on. Birmingham Unified scored on seven of their first 11 shots as they punished virtually every mistake that the Cougars made early on.
By the end of the first period, Birmingham Unified has amassed nine goals on 27 shots.
“We’ve talked a lot about our first period starts, and we know we have the capability to have a very, very good offensive team. We finally put it together tonight in the first period,” Kings head coach Zachary Warson said. “We just played these guys two or three weeks ago, and it was 0-0 at the end of the first period. So I’m really, really happy with our group overall, some real nice plays in the first period.”
Birmingham Unified eventually got points from 14 different players led by a four-point night from Sam Ruszkowski (one goal and three assists) and two-goal games from Catlin and Jonathan Cloutier.
“We need that. To be successful, to make deep runs (in the playoffs), you need four lines going,” Warson said. “A lot of guys that have been playing well that haven’t produced in the score sheet, it sparked them tonight and hopefully will spark them for the rest of the year.”
Stoney Creek regrouped in the second period, defending much better and holding the Kings to just eight shots on goal in the second period. The Cougars also had a couple of breakaways to try and get on the board, but they could not convert.
“The second period, we battled a heck of a lot harder than we did in the first. We were a little harder to play against, and
we’re going to build on it for tomorrow,” Cougars head coach Steve Emery said.
Both teams will be back in action on Saturday.
Birmingham Unified (52, 3-1 in OAA Red) has a non-conference home game against Milford.
Stoney Creek (1-6, 0-4 OAA Red) won’t have long to dwell on the loss as they face a road test against Clarkston Saturday in another league match up.
“They capitalized on mistakes. We knew that going in. The score is what it is. We’re going to put it behind us. We mentally weren’t ready to go in the first, took a timeout pretty early there, and came back and they capitalized on two more mistakes within two minutes,” Emery said. “Luckily, we’re back at tomorrow against Clarkston, and we’re going to put this one behind us. There’s not much we can take from it.”