Feb 10, 2012 | hcarruthers | 1507 views
Warriors beat first place London Nationals
On Saturday, the Stratford Crabby Joes Minor Bantam MD Warriors travelled to London for an early afternoon game against the first place London Nationals. With this being their final regular season meeting, the Warriors looked to take another win from the first place team. The first period brought a lot of end to end action and looked be a scoreless period until Leam Hughes buried a shot with only 25 seconds left in the period. Parker Wamboldt and Ryan Carruthers each picked up assists on the play. Xavier Rutherford was strong once again in the Warrior's net shutting out the Nationals, until midway through the second, when London snuck one past him tying the game and ending the second in a tight 1-1 game.
Stratford turned it on in the third period scoring two goals only 10 seconds apart. James Drake drove hard to the net for the first goal and Parker Wamboldt beat the London goalie for the second. Assists went to Trey Uniac, Wesley Keutsch and Blake Keen. Stratford struck again with less than 10 minutes left in the game as Defenceman Matthieu Carman rushed into London's end, beating the National's goalie on the power play, with the assist going to Sam Knechtel. With a 4-1 lead, Stratford was looking strong until penalty troubles hit. With two quick goals London was back in the game. They pulled their goalie and were pressuring the Warriors until Blake Keen picked up the puck and rushed into London's end finding the empty net. The final score was 5-3.