Cougars back in third place after notching 3 points

December 11, 2013 · 0 Comments

By Jeff Doner
The Schomberg Cougars were looking to rebound after losing three of four games and they did just that against the Alliston Hornets and Huntsville Otters last week.
Collecting three of four possible points moved the Cougars back into third place in the Georgian Mid-Ontario Junior C standings, 10 points behind the first place Caledon squad and five behind Alliston.
On Thursday night the Cougars amped themselves up for a big matchup against the Hornets at the Trisan Centre.
The Hornets came out to an early 2-0 lead, but the Cougars dug deep and forced their way back into the game with goals by Ryley Egerton and Blake Culley before the first period concluded.
Alliston regained the lead in the second period and the Cougars once again replied on a nice back-hand goal from John Gage at 14:23. Christian Muenz and Declan Lampe were credited with assists on the tying goal.
With the score locked in a 3-3 tie, both teams came out in the third period looking to gain an advantage on the scoreboard.
There was no scoring in the third period which sent the game into overtime and eventually the shootout.
Alliston’s first two shooters scored and the Cougars were blanked, giving the Hornets a 4-3 win.
But the Cougars weren’t all doom and gloom about the loss post-game.
“I think we really bought into the system and played a man-on-man game, which was our goal, and worked as a whole unit instead of individually,” said forward Chris Wilson.
“When you play tougher sometimes it seems like the game can get away from you a bit, but I think we held it together when we needed to and our goalie held us in there.”
Defenceman Kevin Sarrazin agreed with Wilson and felt his team was ready to compete with one of the league’s best teams.
“Preparation is key in this league and I think tonight we prepared very well for the game and we got our heads into it early,” he said. “We had a bit of a rough start, but we bounced back fairly quickly. The game could have gone either way, but I think our effort was there tonight and I think if we keep this effort level for every time we play these guys we should come out with two points.”
Both players also gave kudos to goalie Taylor Ewart, who made 32 saves with several at critical points in the game.
“Tay is a great goaltender. He made some big saves,” Sarrazin said. “If he wasn’t playing as well as he did we wouldn’t have even been in that game. He had some great stops and it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t pull the two points out for Tay, but it could have gone either way.”

Otters dumped

Earlier in the season, the Cougars defeated the Huntsville Otters 6-2, but knew they had to be ready if they were to leave with two points in hand.
They were down 1-0 early in the first, but the Cougars stormed back with four goals from Egerton, Nicholas Chaykowsky, Brandon Falsarella and Muenz in the second.
Muenz scored his second goal of the game at 13:11 in the third and Blake Culley added a power play marker to give the Cougars a 6-4 win.
Garett Taylor got the win in net for Schomberg with a 20-save effort.
The Cougars return home on Thursday night against Midland, a team they have beaten three times this season by a combined score of 28-4.
“We’ve always got hyped up to play Midland and as long as we don’t come out thinking it’s point night we should come out with two,” said Sarrazin. “We don’t really look at the standings; we’re going to prepare the same way every night.”
For more information visit http://jrccougars.pointstreaksites.com.