Mooretown Storm Atom AE split opening games of
League Championship Series
Game 1 - Mooretown 5 St.Mary's 4 OT
The Storm stole home ice advantage with a thrilling overtime victory over the Rock in St.Mary's.
Having not played each other since early December the game got off to a tentative start. The Storm soon began to take control of the play with their speed which lead to Cooper Muxlow opening the scoring with an unassisted blast at the midway mark of the 1st Period. Mooretown continued to pepper the Rock net with shots hitting a crossbar and forcing their goaltender to come up with some great saves.
St.Mary's took a penalty ten seconds into the 2nd and Mooretown capitalized with the man advantage just fourteen seconds later as Aleeza Dobson shoved home a rebound off a Kirk Smith shot. Mooretown would continue to take it to the home team and upped their lead to three with just over four minutes left in the period as Ben Anderson drove hard to the net to sneak home a Muxlow rebound.
The Rock showed why they only lost twice during the regular season as they quickly regrouped and scored goals just thirteen seconds apart late in the period to send the teams into the 3rd with the Storm clinging to a one goal lead.
In the 3rd the home team used the momentum they gained from their goals and started to carry the play to the Storm hemming Mooretown into their own end for minutes at a time. However, the Storm gained some breathing room with just over seven minutes to play when Aynsley Harrison chased down a puck cleared into the neutral zone, shrugged off a checker, and ripped a shot into the bottom corner. Griffin Dillabough assisted on the play.
St.Mary's would continue to press and scored off a rebound to make it a one goal game. Again the Rock would strike fast as they scored off another goal-mouth scramble just half a minute later at the three minute mark to tie the game up at 4. The final two minutes was end to end action as both teams tried to put the game away in regulation time.
Overtime was all Mooretown as they shook off the late game bad bounces and again used their speed to control the play. It looked as though the Storm had the game won early but had a puck ring off the post, a stretching goalie make a glove save on the goal line and zipped one over the crossbar from the low slot. With time winding down in the ten minute OT the Storm continued to go for the win and with 1:25 to go Muxlow took a pass from Harrison and fired one past the goalie's glove as he raced across the slot.
Kyler Raymond played a great game starting in net and Kaden Fulcher stood tall to hold off a relentless St.Mary's offence to carry his team through overtime.
Game 2 - Mooretown 2 St.Mary's 5
Determined to steal back a win on the road the Rock came to Mooretown and outworked the Storm from start to finish for a convincing 5-2 win.
St.Mary's came out flying in the first shift and took it to the Storm playing a strong dump and chase game that kept the home team from establishing any flow at all. When Mooretown was able to work the puck into the St.Mary's zone it was quickly shot off the boards and out into the neutral zone erasing any forechecking pressure the Storm forwards were applying.
The 1st Period ended with the visitors up by one and they scored again just twenty seconds into the 2nd to take a commanding 2-0 lead. Mooretown was unable to direct many shots at the St.Mary's net making it a relatively easy first two periods for the Rock goaltenders.
It would take just over three minutes into the 3rd Period before the Storm managed some offence. Ethan DuPont took a breakout pass up the middle from Brett Farr and raced in from the red line to score a beautiful breakaway goal. This seemed to give the Storm some jump but a goal off a scramble in front of the Mooretown net put St.Mary's back up by two just three minutes later. Mooretown again got caught out of position around their own net and allowed St.Mary's to jam in another in the crease with five minutes to play. With the goalie pulled and two minutes to play Mooretown managed to cut into the lead as Kirk Smith put in a rebound off of a Cooper Muxlow attempt. The goal was Smith's 50th of the season. Off the ensuing face-off St.Mary's managed to grab the puck off the draw and score into an empty net to seal the three goal win.
The Storm look shake off a rare poor performance and get back on track as they head to St.Mary's for Game 3 next Saturday and return for Game 4 at home on Sunday.
