On their last visit to the Niagara region the Stephens Equipment Highlanders played 4:30 pm on the Sunday in a game against the Niagara North Stars at the St Catharines’ Sportsplex.
After a long drive down the team started off sluggishly in the first period and at 8:05 the Stars opened the scoring with a deflected shot from the left point. In between the killing off of two short-handed situations in the second period, Ben Van Ooteghem (Saugeen Shores) tied up the game at 7:26 with an end-to-end rush and put in his own rebound, Hunter Robins-Gibbons (North Bruce Peninsula) assisting on the play. Early in the third period the Highlanders took a 2-1 lead at 13:22, when Darcy Witt (Collingwood) won the face-off draw in the Stars zone back to Garrett McFadden at the point, whose snap shot towards the net was deflected in by Van Ooteghem. At 8:52, the Stars tied the score up at 2-2 when a shot wide of the Highlanders net bounced out from behind the other side, where a Stars forward had a wide open net to pop the puck in. Late in the game Nick Redman came up with a big save when the puck was turned over at the Highlanders’ blue line, allowing a Stars penalty killer to break in alone, only to be foiled by the quick glove of Redman. With the clock running down and the puck in the Stars end of the ice, Spencer Elder (Owen Sound) knocked the puck off a Niagara North defense man’s stick. With it sliding towards the goal, the Stars goalie came out to play the puck, but fanned on the clearing attempt. Elder gave the puck another shove with his own stick to push it past the goalie and into the net at 0:04 to give the Stephens Equipment crew a 3-2 win.
The Highlanders will be playing in the Waterloo Gold Puck tournament through the upcoming Dec 9th to 11th weekend.