Houston - hero for Scotians!

The AA Munro Antigonish Jr. Bulldogs are up 2-0 in their Sid Rowe Divisional Semi-Final with the Port Hawkesbury Strait Pirates after their 10-2 clubbing of the Pirates in Antigonish Sunday night.  Fearghus MacDonald led the way scoring 4 times and assisting on another goal.  Jordan Etheridge scored a pair with singles going to Ethan Price, Jake MacDonald, Connor Doherty and Will Fitzsimmons.  Darren Waterman added 3 assists.  The Jr. Bulldogs are now 26-0-1 including the regular season as the continue their drive to the Don Johnson Memorial Cup which exemplifies Atlantic Junior B Hockey Supremacy in Cocgan, New Brunswick the last week of April.  Games 3 and 4 in this series will be played Tuesday and Friday night in Port Hawkesbury.  If a 5th game becomes necessary, it will be in Antigonish Sunday night Mar 20.  Looking back at Friday:

Antigonish   3     Port Hawkesbury  1

The Jr. Bulldogs outshot the Strait Pirates 52-27 but Port Hawkesbury showed they wwere determined to keep the Bulldog offense to a minimum.  Antigonish led 1-0 after 1 period on goal by Ryan MacLellan.  Lewis Taylor tied it for the Strait in the second period before Darren Waterman's power-play game-winning goal with 6:14 to go in the middle period.  With just 4:09 remaining, Sam Grant added an insurance goal on the power-play to make the final 3-1 Antigonish.  Jordan Etheridge added a pair of assists for the Bulldogs.

The Liverpool Privateers have dug themselves a deep hole than I am sure they wanted as they have fallen behind 2-0 in their Best-of-Seven Fox Divisional Semi-Final with the Capstone Colts following 4-0 and 3-1 losses on Friday at C.F.B. Shearwater and Saturday at Queens Place Emera Centre.  Games 3 and 4 in this series will be played Wednesday night in Shearwater and Friday night in Liverpool with a Game 5 if necessary back in Shearwater Saturday night.  The Colts won their 10th and 11th consecutive games going back to the regular season with a 4-0 win Friday.  Special Teams were dominant for the Colts in the first period as they notched 2 power-play goals and added a short-handed marker to lead 3-0 after twenty minutes.  Cooper Puma and Brady Crossley scored the power-play markers while Brayden Hooper-Richard scored short-handed for the Colts.  Griffin Peers added the Colts fourth and final goal of the night with under five minutes to play in the game.

The Sackville Blazers played five more regular season games than the East Hants Penguins and finished at 14-7-1 while the Pens concluded at 10-7 but when it comes to playoff hockey, as well all know nothing is certain as the Penguins came out strong Friday March 11 in the opener of their Best-of-Seven Fred Fox Divisional Semi-Final defeating the Blazers 3-1 in Lantz while outshooting the Blazers 40-26.  Games 2 and 3 revert back to Sackville Monday March 14 and Thursday March 17.  The big trouble for Sackville were the two power-play goals they allowed the Penguins in the third period as Brody Fraser tallied one including the game winner at 11:15 while Deegen Noble was serving a minor for hooking and the insurance goal was scored by Evan McHenry while Trey Faulkner was off for slashing.  McHenry also added a pair of assists while Bruen Fisher who scored the other Pens goal also recorded an assist as did Fraser whose goal was also a power-play in the first period.  The only Blazers goal all night was scored by Noah healy with 2:24 to play in the opening frame. Sackville had defeated East Hants 4-1 in their only regular season game played between the two clubs but that game is immaterial now and the Blazers will have to come up with four wins before East Hants can register 3 of their own in order to advance to the Fred Fox Divisional Final.

The Nova Scotia Junior Hockey League’s Divisional Semi-Finals begin Thursday night in Trenton as the Pictou County Scotians entertain the Membertou Jr. Miners in a 6:30 start.  The Scotians and Jr. Miners clashed four times during the regular season with the Jr. Miners winning 6-4 and 6-1 and the Scotians 4-3 and 3-2, both via a shoot-out.  The Scotians will be leaning heavily on net minder Brandon Connors who finished with a 7-1-0 win-loss record during the regular season while stopping 252 of a possible 265 shots for a .951 save percentage and a 1.55 GAA while in the process collecting three shut-outs.  The Scotians averaged 3.5 goals a game during the season while allowing on average 3 goals a game. It will be the Scotians defence and goaltending which has been standing out as they had only a single two-digit goal scorer in Connor Aucoin who scored 13 times and added 13 assists.  Thomas Kennaley scored 9 times and Matt Carson 8 times while helping out with 11 others.