January 28, 2012
The West Ottawa Panthers played host to Lowell-Caledonia earlier today, in a match-up between two of the top three teams in the OK Tier 3 Conference. Lowell-Caledonia had only lost once this season and were sitting atop the conference standings, but West Ottawa had been on a roll as of late putting up 8 goals in both of their last two games. The Panthers were able to stay red hot on Saturday, continuing to find the back of the net in a 6-3 win.
In an extremely physical game it seemed like there was only a few occasions that both teams were at full strength, as both teams kept the benches in their penalty boxes nice and warm. West Ottawa jumped out of the gates early and quickly built up a 3-0 lead in the first quarter. Alex Kramer got things rolling for the Panthers with a goal on a nasty wrister at 13:32, on an assist from Alex Grosvenor. Then just 3 minutes later, on a 4 0n 4, Danny Matrosic snuck one past the five-hole of Ben Smith to put West Ottawa up 2 zip. Sophomore Alex Zimerman kept things rolling for WO with a short-handed goal with 3:26 in the first, and you started to get the feeling that this one was over.
Both teams started to get a little chippy at this point, with some uncalled for pushing and shoving nearly leading to a couple fights. Zimmerman and Lowell-Caledonia goalie Ben Smith got into a heated “discussion” , ending with Zimmerman pointing his stick up at the scoreboard (reading 3-0 at the time), which earned him an unsportsmanlike conduct and a costly trip to the penalty box. Lowell-Caledonia took advantage of this last power play of the period, as Cam Stegar was able to get his stick on the puck in front of the net to deflect one in, and put LC on the board.
Lowell-Caledonia was able to ride the momentum into the second period and make this one much more competitive than it looked like it was going to be early on. Collin Finkhouse showcased his speed on a shorthanded breakaway goal to pull LC to within one. Then at the 6 minute mark Finkhouse led a two on one run, waiting until the last possible moment to sling the puck over to Conrad DeRidder who put in the equalizer to knot it up at 3-3.
From here, the Panthers roared back to life and scored the games final three goals to eventually come away with the 6-3 victory. West Ottawa freshmen Reece Lindemann was able to put home a loose puck in front of the net to give his squad what ended up being the game winning goal with under 3 minutes to go in the second. Then in the final period both Cameron Fisher and Blake DenBoer were able to tack on goals to give the Panthers a comfortable lead.
West Ottawa was very physical all game, and seemed to overpower Lowell-Caledonia at times, but also lost discipline at times as they had far too many penalties throughout the course of the game. LC did manage to put up 34 shots on goal, compared to West Ottawa’s 23, but Micheal Ewing was able to come up huge in the net for the Panthers, tallying up 31 saves on the day.
With the win West Ottawa is now 10-7-1 on the year and 5-2-1 in the OK Tier 3. Lowell-Caledonia was handed its first conference loss of the season, putting them at 6-1 in league play and 13-2 overall. LC will remain first in the conference, but this was none the less a great win for a streaking West Ottawa squad.
Loading ...
