Dec 08, 2013 | Joe Heinisch | 395 views
Losing Streak Snapped with a Big Win
Sunday December 8, 2013
Game Reporter: Jay Nijhuis
After losing 3 games in a row (one of them an exhibition game), the coaching staff knew it was really important to nip this mini losing streak in the bud and to get the AtoMc Lightning back on track with a big win this morning against AtoMc Purple.
This morning marked the completion of an entire loop of the league, meaning we have officially played every one once and had a 4-3 record in those 7 games. AtoMc Purple was the team we played in our very first game, and although we won that game, we knew that team across the hall was not the same team we played 2 months ago and we would need to bring our "A" game to compete.
Coach Joe mentioned in the dressing room before the game that "Waterloo Wolves is a really cool name and we need to play like Wolves today. Travel in packs, watch out for each other, be aggressive and relentless in our quest for the puck, and always be hungry to score goals"
Jackson M had his turn to start this game and his mission was to try and keep us in the game early if we faltered. Lucky for him, that wasn't an issue this morning, as Coach Joe's speech seemed to get the boys fired up and what we saw over the next 50 minutes was a completely different AtoMc Lightning game then we saw 24 hours earlier.
We had a lot of jump in our game and the red hot Ty C scored just one and a half minutes into the first period. That makes 5 goals for Ty C in his last 3 games. The Lightning kept coming 4 minutes later when Grady S made a wonderful deke and potted an unassisted goal to make it 2-0 and that's the way the first period ended.
Our defence was really strong this morning and Jonah V had many great rushes up the ice throughout the game, but it was 3 minutes into the second period when Zack C chipped the puck off of the boards to Jonah who cut across the blue line and fired a wrist shot into the bottom right corner of the net to make it 3-0. AtoMc Purple took advantage of a rare defensive gaff late in the 2nd period to make it 3-1 after two periods of play.
There was no let down in the third period as 4 minutes in, Grady S scored his second goal of the game on a beautiful back hand shot and our defence held on for a 4-1 win snapping the 3 game losing streak and bumping our record to 5-3 on the season.
The McDonald's Golden Jersey was warded to Sam G who had the game of his life. He skated with the puck, made smart dump in plays and battled hard for loose pucks in the corner. Congrats to Sam on his Golden Jersey win. Our next game is Sunday December 15 at 7:30am in Albert McCormick West arena vs AtoMc Teal.