From this reporters point of view it appeared the Cheyenne team had grown up and changed schools while your Bantam Black was set back a grade. “Are they ever going to wake up” was heard over and over from the concerned parents of these kids. Cheyenne played a physical brand of hockey; taking four penalties and still beating Black by five goals! The usual suspects were absent in scoring as Ryan Nafziger, Zac Alexander and Ryan Christopolis earned no points in this game. Ryan was moved to defense to replace Jarrett Nafziger. Cheyenne capitalized on Ryans lack of experience at the position with three break-away goals. Coach Brian confessed he counted six break away runs where Black’s defense let the Cheyenne players get behind them. Black fought back with goals from Tyler Falk, Crockett Harper and even goalie Tim George earned an assist (he was skating out of course). The Nic and Nick duo each cooled a couple minutes in the sin bin. Nick C. for interference and Nic M for roughing. Way to go boys! As coach Brian says; “You can’t win them all”.
This game was more of a score fest. Our guys got exhausted from setting up and scoring goals. Leading the way was the prolific scorer and consummate puck hog Ryan Nafziger. Ryan finished with four points, a hat trick with one assist. He was closely followed by Crockett Harper who had three goals but no assists. OK, so Ryan had one assist. I guess he isn’t a total ‘puck hog’; so I take that back. Other contributers included Max Alexander with a goal, Quinn McConnellogue with a goal, Tyler Falk with a goal, Jason Chipp with an assist, Nick Collins with two assists. Finally, leading the way in the assists category was Zac Alexander with three. This was Zac’s first go at playing center and it showed. He was skating all over the place at Zac speed. Zac speed is pretty good at this level. Zac complained he needed more shifts; like you get when you play defense. I expect Zac will do what he can to get back to D.Max, Jason, Nick C. and Quinn were able to erase their goose eggs and get on the boards (as in scoring) in this game. There was no shortage of smiling faces, high fives and hugs as the goals just kept on coming.
Who would of thunk it? Educated sports fans had concluded the Jr. Eagles Black team was out classed by the Capitals. After two periods of play the Eagles were down 0-2. Generally the players were stuck in their defensive zone where wingers were consistently failing to cover the point; the Capitals took advantage by passing the puck to their defense men whereupon it would come right back in front of the Eagles net, gotta hate that. Coaches Brian and Shane did their best on the bench at the start of the third period and I’ll be darned if they didn’t fight their way back into the game.
Black goes down 2-1 in a close fought game where they had led for a large part. The bantam Cheyenne Capitals looked to be the more experienced and skilled team of the two; still the Jr. Eagles had a chance to tie it up late in the third period. With 1:46 on the clock they were awarded a face-off in their offensive zone. Coaches could have called a time out, pulled the goalie then with their best skaters on the ice make a bid for a game tying goal. Instead they dropped the puck and got pushed back whereupon they successfully defended their own goal.Zac Alexander scored the only goal for the Eagles. If MVP were to be awarded most fans would have it go to the goalie who withstood the large majority of shots making some fantastic saves.
