Hag-hawks inconsistency spoils opportunity

HAGERSVILLE – The Hagersville Hawks have hit a dry patch this past week with two losses in three games to remain in the bottom three of the Niagara District Jr. C standings. The skid caused the Hawks to miss a golden opportunity to leapfrog a couple of teams and get higher in the standings.

It all started on the right foot last Tuesday, Dec 2nd, with a 5-1 win over the first place Grimsby Peach Kings in a rough and tumble game in Hagersville.

Derek Friesen, Dan Mederios, Matt Rimac and Bailey Fletcher built up a 4-0 lead in the first period. Grimsby became much more physical in the second period, resulting in 15 penalties assessed for unsportsmanlike conduct, inciting, abuse of officials and other miscellaneous acts of aggression on both sides.

In the end, Cole Martin scored the game’s final goal at 10:25 of the third period for the surprise win over the league leaders.

But the Hawks lost that ground Saturday night at the Hagersville Arena, by losing 4-1 at the hands of the 14-10-1 Glanbrook Rangers. The Hawks had a chance to pull even with the Rangers, but could not get more than one shot behind Matthew Vanturelli in the Glanbrook goal.

The Rangers’ powerplay was working well, scoring two of their goals with Hawks in the penalty box. Glanbrook was 2-4 in that department while Hagersville was 1-8.

Drew Jedrzejewicz and Brad Parish gave the Rangers a 2-0 lead in the first period before Hagersville’s Matt Rimac netted a powerplay marker with 34 seconds left on the clock.

Although there was no scoring in the second period, there was a battle between Hawks’ Brayden Hill and Rangers’ Joel Tivanian at 2:29 with both combatants being tossed from the game.

Cole Anderson gave Glanbrook a two-goal edge at 3:35 of the final frame and Josh Pace closed the show at 14:28 on a powerplay.

Sunday, in Port Dover, a horrific third period capped off a lackluster game against the second last place Sailors, resulting in a 7-4 loss against a team they should have beaten.

The teams remained close throughout the first 40 minutes of play, but then the Hawks lost all discipline and spent far too much time killing penalties to concentrate on scoring. Thanks to the Hawks’ penalty killers, Dover went 0-11 man advantage opportunities, but the Sailors netted five third period goals to seal the 7-4 win.

The Hawks will lick their wounds and prepare for the coming week starting with Thursday night’s road trip to Niagara before hosting the Peach Kings Saturday night, Dec. 13th.

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