The Hamilton Kilty B’s and St. Catharines Falcons opened up their third-round series on Monday night with a 6-2 Falcons win in Hamilton.
Prior to the game the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League (GOJHL) presented winners of the Golden Horseshoe Conference major awards with their trophies.
Mitchell Armstrong scored a hat trick and Andrew MacLean made 26 saves for the Falcons, who remain undefeated in the postseason.
Less than four minutes into the game, Falcons forward Blake Yetman got a partial breakaway and beat Hamilton starting goalie Braedyn McIntosh to take an early 1-0 lead.
A few minutes later McIntosh misplayed a Yetman dump-in and then offered up a juicy rebound to Sam Williamson on a Nicholas Rubino shot for the Falcons second goal.
Towards the end of the period, Armstrong powered off a Kilty B’s defender in the neutral zone and fired a shot that squeaked through McIntosh. It was the last shot he would face on a night that the goalie would probably rather forget.
With Gage Stewart between the pipes the Kilty B’s were momentarily invigorated, and responded quickly with a goal to close out the period. Matthew Duarte made an exceptional individual play to gain the offensive zone and taking it into the corner. He played tic-tac-toe with Dylan Abbamont before finding Nolan Underwood on the far side for an easy goal.
Down 3-1 in the second period, the Kilty B’s continued to press to keep the momentum and mount a comeback. Six minutes into the frame, Underwood sent a shot towards MacLean and Duarte was all over the rebound to make it 3-2.
But that was as close as Hamilton would get on the night, as a beautiful goal by Jonah Boria a few minutes later and two empty netters by Armstrong sealed the win for St. Catharines.
Stewart only let in one goal on eleven shots in relief, but down two with a mountain to climb the team pulled him for the extra man twice within the last four minutes of the game.
