After a very disappointing showing in Marquette the weekend
before, the Soo Indians rebounded against the Thunder Bay Kings and took three
points from them to move within one point of third place in the Northern Lakes
Hockey League. Unfortunately, this was
the final league game for both teams and their positions in the league will not
change.
On Saturday, Joey Gravedoni filled the net and put a wall up
that Thunder Bay could only crack one time and that wasn't until 3:25 of the
third period. Gravedoni stopped 37 of 38
shots he faced. He got help from Alex
Goodhue (Chris Hoffman, Dave Castellion) at 11:44 of the opening period to take
a 1-0 lead into the first break. In the
second period, Castellion (Hoffman, Sam Matthews) buried a power play goal to
go up 2-0 after two periods. Thunder Bay
scored their goal to pull within one and nearing the end of the game, the Kings
pulled their goalie in favor of the extra attacker. Sam Matthews, however, intercepted a errant
pass and pushed it to Gavin Burbach who put it into the empty net for the 3-1
victory.
At one point in the game, the Indians were down a man for
more than 7 minutes and part of that time they were down two men. Their resilience held through and they fought
it off. Kyle Maleport managed to have
more penalty minutes than the entire Thunder Bay team with 38, including a two
game suspension.
Sunday's game was just as exciting. Gravedoni played in net again stopping 23 of
27 shots. Colby Spoonemore (Gavin
Burbach, Corey Jewell) opened up the scoring at 11:58 of the first and the
Indians took that lead into the break.
At 1:36 of the second, Dave Castellion (Chris Hoffman, Corey Jewell)
netted his first goal of the night. Thunder
Bay came back at 5:22 to cut the gap to one goal, but Castellion put in his
second goal of the night at 9:11 with help from Matt Samuel and Cody Blom to
take a 3-1 lead after two. Thunder Bay
came right back, though, and opened the scoring in the third at 6:47 to, again,
pull within one goal. At 12:13, they
tied the game on a power play goal. The
Indians' Castellion was not to be outdone and he netted his hat trick goal at
15:24 on assists from Alex Goodhue and Cody Blom to take a one goal lead with
2:36 left in the game. That lead didn't
last as Thunder Bay evened the score just :14 seconds later.
The Indians will finish the season in fourth place in the
Northern Lakes Hockey League behind, Capital Centre Pride, Shattuck St. Mary's
and one point behind the Thunder Bay Kings.
The Marquette Electricians and Ojibwa Eagles round out the league.
Next weekend the
Indians travel to Madison to participate in the Gold Cup. Their first two games will be against the #2
ranked Belle Tire and #7 ranked Team Illinois.
