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| Deeside's Ross Kennedy bagged a brace against Hull (Photo by Keith & Jenny Davies) |
Sunday 27h September – NIHL Moralee Division: Deeside D1 Dragons 5 – Hull Jets 2
The
Deeside D1 Dragons made it three wins from three starts in the new Moralee
Division season with a 5-2 victory at home to Hull Jets on Sunday at Deeside
Leisure Centre.
The
game was pretty close throughout and the first period looked as if it was going
to play out goal-less until Hull opened the scoring with just 6 seconds left on
the clock to take a narrow 0-1 lead into the first break.
Deeside
drew level 48 seconds from the restart with a goal from Ross Kennedy and the
same player edged the Dragons into the lead three minutes later.
Just
46 seconds after that, the score was 3-1 to Deeside as team captain Jared
Dickinson fired the puck away for his first goal of the season.
Hull
put in a battling display and matched Deeside shot for shot over the course of
the game. They were rewarded with a second goal on 32 minutes but were
otherwise unable to make the most of their chances when they came.
The
Dragons were sharper in front of goal and restored the two-goal cushion on 38
minutes with a Jake Witkowski goal to lead 4-2 at the second interval.
Hull
visibly upped their game in the final period as they tried to force a late
comeback. The period played out
goal-less and the Jets called a time out with 3 minutes left to discuss
last-ditch tactics.
They
withdrew their netminder for the last 90 seconds in favour of an extra attacker
and pushed forward to put the Deeside goal under pressure.
The
tactic backfired, however, and Jake Witkowski fired in an empty net goal with 3
seconds left in the game to hand the Dragons a well deserved 5-2 victory.
Curtis
Warburton gave another impressive performance in the Deeside net, turning away
35 of the 37 shots that he faced - also being credited with an assist on Witkowski's empty net goal - and was named Dragons MVP.
Following
the weekend games, Deeside have moved up into 4th place in the
Moralee Division table with 9 points from their 3 wins to date - and they have
games in hand over all of the other teams.
Solihull
Barons remain top of the table with 13 points from 5 games with Widnes Wild lurking
close behind in second and Blackburn Hawks in third – on 11 and 10 points respectively.
The
D1 Dragons are at home again this Sunday 4th October when they take
on Billingham Stars at Deeside Leisure Centre, 5.15pm face off.
The
D2 Dragons are away to Billingham the same day while the new Dragons Women’s
team travel to Altrincham on Saturday to take on Manchester Storm, where they
hope to extend their own winning start to the season after two victories from
their two starts to date.
