GrayJay Sports
League News
Howie and Westlake shine
Alec Howie and Cohen Westlake were red hot and sizzled for the South Shore Lumberjacks Sunday afternoon in Antigonish as they led their team to a 5-3 win over the Antigonish Jr. Bulldogs to tie their Best-of-Seven Nova Scotia Junior Hockey League Championship series at 1-1. The Lumberjacks coming off a hard fought 5-2 loss Saturday evening in the opener were extra hungry, no doubt thinking of a huge Easter Dinner after the game as they allowed the Bulldogs to take a 1-0 lead on Zachary Lorette’s third goal in the series with 3:27 having elapsed in the opening period. That lead stood for 58 seconds when the Lumberjacks John Shubaly tallied the first of five straight South Shore Goals. The second one was scored by Alec Howie which was his first of two on the afternoon and the third by Daniel Kline and the Lumberjacks led 3-1 after twenty minutes.
The South Shore didn’t stop as Shubaly connected to make it 4-1 Lumberjacks only 57 seconds into the middle period and then Howie with his second of the afternoon put the visitors up 5-1. Bradley Armstrong stopped the Avalanche of Lumberjack scoring as he made it 5-2 with slightly more than five minutes to play in the middle frame. The final goal of the game came from the Bulldogs Nick Marshall on the power-play with under five minutes to play in the third period.
Howie besides his two goals, also collected a pair of assists to take over the League Playoff Scoring Race. Howie surpassed Nathaniel Fuller of the Membertou Jr. Miners who had scored eleven times and collected 8 assists for 19 points in Membertou’s nine playoff games. The four point afternoon for Howie gives him 10 goals and 10 assists for 20 points in 13 games to date in the playoffs. Cohen Westlake collected four assists in Sunday’s win for the South Shore giving him 11 assists in the 13 South Shore playoff games. Antigonish outshot the South Shore 30-28 including 14-9 and 9-6 in the final two periods.
Games three and four in this Championship Series now heads for Bridgewater this Friday and Saturday. Game 3 will be Friday evening at 7:30 p.m.and Game 4 Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. The winner of this Provincial Championship heads to Newfoundland for the Don Johnson Memorial Cup Atlantic Playoffs in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland beginning Tuesday, April 23.