Senators secured their second 5-1 victory of the weekend, this time over Coventry Blaze NIHL. The first period was very scrappy with neither team finding any sort of rhythm to their play with countless mistimed or misplaced passes making it interesting if anything else but it wasn’t particularly pleasant on the eye at times.
Senators enjoyed a good spell to score twice; the first timed at 4.56, Mike Mawer scoring assisted Ben Towler & Nathan Britton with Ben Towler scoring a good second goal on 5.11 which was assisted by Cam King & Jamie Lewis. Sens enjoyed a continued spell of pressure but Blaze were just doing enough to hang on in there but as the period progressed they came more into the game causing Sens problems but they couldn’t force their way back into the game.
Senators stepped it up a gear with a more intense game and at times were camped in Blazes defensive zone with Coventry at times struggling to clear the puck. But they deserve credit, because some smart defending and sound netminding did keep the score down. Tom Humphries and Nathan Britton combined well to set up Josh Gent at 26.02 with Paul Lofthouse forcing the puck home after some determined play assisted Rudy Molnar who was on the end of a lovely long pin pointed pass from Sergevs Jegorovs (photo) that split Blazes defence wide open. Despite Senators dominance in this period Coventry nearly hit back on a couple of occasions but the post came to Senators rescue to keep their 4-0 advantage intact which was also aided by an alert Bob Browne in Sens goal.
It’s arguable that Sens may have sat back a little but Coventry certainly came out stronger for the final period and Sens had to call on Bob Browne to make the saves to keep the score at 4-0. Sens had their chances too but the intensity from the previous period wasn’t as high but they still looked comfortable and in control despite Blazes best efforts.
"Stevie" Jegorovs put the game to bed when he fired in to make it 5-0 at 48.15 with Charlie Thompson & Callum Rawson getting the assists. Blaze continued to work hard and their efforts were rewarded on 56.54 with a good goal, well taken too by Phil Pollok who made no mistake after seeing his team earlier have a goal washed out for a man in the crease.
That made it 5-1 to Sens which was also the final score in which was a decent game in the end; well once the first period was out of the way to see Sens bag a valuable 4 points from the weekend that sees them cement their place in second spot in the league table.
Report by Phil Holden