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Excelsiors bitten by Kodiaks once
again
The only blemish on the Excelsior
record so far this season was an embarrassing loss
to the Kitchener-Waterloo Kodiaks in overtime at
home. One would hope that the Brampton squad would
do their utmost to seek retribution when the Kodiaks
came back for round 2 after the Excelsiors rebounded
to win another 4 straight while KW lost their next
3, but it wasn't in the cards for the hometown squad.
Despite making changes in the line-up
from last night's victory against Brooklin, Brampton
came out in the first period looking very sluggish.
Four and a half minutes into the game Kitchener
opened up the scoring and added another 2 within
the next minute. By the 8 minute mark they had extended
their lead to 4 and added another to take a 5-0
lead into the first intermission.
Brampton came out of the break and
managed to get on the board with a goal from Jeff
Shattler 2 minutes into the second period. Dan Dawson
trimmed the Kodiak lead further 5 minutes later
as he swam himself to the front of the net. Kitchener
answered back with a goal of their own while short
handed, but Aaron Wilson corrected the error by
scoring his first of the night on the continuing
power-play. The Kodiaks would add a power-play marker
of their own to end the period 7-3 Kitchener.
Brampton came out in the third seeming
determined not to let this game slip away. Aaron
Wilson added another power-play marker 3 minutes
into the third and completed his hat trick 9 minutes
later to draw the Excelsiors to within 2 with less
than 8 minutes to go. With the Excelsiors a man
down Cam Woods stripped the ball and after about
10 fakes buried a short-handed goal with 6 minutes
to go to get the hometown crowd back in the game.
Less than a minute later Jeff Shattler blasted a
shot through the short side to tie the game at 7,
and it looked as though the Brampton team was on
a roll. With less than two minutes to go and a stellar
comeback by the Brampton defense and goaltender
Anthony Cosmo, Brampton's Brodie Merrill took a
costly penalty leaving the Excelsior's short-handed.
After a couple of great saves and penalty-killing
work it looked as though we were going to overtime
once again. Unfortunately Kitchener's Andrew Watt
managed to break up a pass and raced down the floor
with Brampton's Dan Dawson chasing. It appeared
as though Dawson had contained him enough, and that
Cosmo made the save, but unfortunately the ball
continued to roll and crossed the line with 10 seconds
remaining. Brampton won the ensuing face-off, but
were unable to make anything happen as the game
ended in a 8-7 Kodiak victory.
Brampton takes the floor once again
this Saturday at 7:00 against the visiting Six Nations
Chiefs in what will be their last regular season
meeting. Hopefully they can take in this lesson
once again and come out firing on all cylinders.
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