Jan 22, 2014 | mholzel | 295 views
Midget Major Stars back in Bluewater League finals
It’s back to familiar territory for the fifth straight year for the Midget Major Stars as they have reached the finals of the Bluewater League with a pair of victories last Saturday at home – a 2-0 shutout by Thomas Demarco over Riverside and a 6-3 come from behind win over St. Thomas later that day with Daniel Tonietto in net. Coach Glen Holden’s boys secured another chance at a league title.
In Game 1, a powerplay tally was all the scoring the Stars would need for the win as Ryan Holzel fed Robbie Lavoie who, in turn, fed an open Marshal Laing with Laing finding the back of the net from the hash mark for a 1-0 opening period lead.The score would remain the same until less than 30 seconds left in the third period. With the Ranger net empty, defenseman Zak Parlette would slide the rubber over to Mitch Holden and his shot would be deposited into the open cage for a 2-0 Stars’ victory.Only six hours later, the Stars were back to battle the Stars from St. Thomas and the visitors came to play as they rode a pair of powerplay goals into a 3-1 lead midway through the contest.With just over half a game to be played, the Stars of Amherstburg’s defensive unit buckled down and netminder Tonietto joined in and the hometown Stars’ offense woke up and put five more goals into the St. Thomas cage for a 6-3 final.It was a blind backhand pass from Anthony Cristofaro to a pinching Ryan Wismer that would close the gap to 3-2 and before the middle frame would expire; it was Parlette that would put Cristofaro back on the scoresheet for his first of two.In the span of five minutes, the Amherstburg Stars would strike for a trio of goals to send them into the finals.Captain Noah Renaud would slip the puck to Wismer at the faceoff circle and his shot would give the home side the lead for good.Only three minutes later, it was Zak Fritsch feeding Renaud and Cory Burns would sneak the puck under the St. Thomas goalie’s pad from the blue ice and the Stars suddenly had a two-goal cushion.An unselfish Michael Ciccone flipped a pass to Cristofaro and his empty net goal would seal the win for the hometown boys.After the second game, power forward Jacob Damico replied “we started out flat in the first period and as the game wore on, we slowly found out that we were the better team. We finally got to play our style in the last period and eventually that was the difference tonight. It’s only going to get tougher down the road so this was a huge win.”The Stars will now face the Riverside Rangers in the finals in a best of five series that will begin this weekend. Check the AMHA website for a full schedule of their next round. Special to the RTT