Whitley Warriors entertained the Sutton Sting on Sunday evening at their Hillheads Rink on North Tyneside. Warriors welcomed back Ali Brummitt into their line up as the blue liner has returned to the Whitley roster after a spell away from competitive hockey. Whitley were able to select an almost full strength squad, Liam Brown missed out after taking a puck to the face in last weekend’s game in North Wales against the Deeside Dragons.
Warriors almost grabbed an early lead as David Longstaff twice went close for Whitley however the home side only had to wait till the 6th minute of the game for their opening goal when Callum Watson netted a very well taken wraparound goal. Sting were creating openings of their own though and Sutton levelled the scores with 10 minutes on the clock when Joe Coulton fired home from distance. Whitley went close to regaining the advantage late on in the opening period when Sting netminder Dmitri Zimzodra somehow kept out a stinging effort from Warriors Harry Harley.
The 2nd period saw Whitley regain the lead on 32 minutes when Lawson Glasby grabbed his 4th goal of the season from close range. Once again Sutton were able to equalise quickly as Charlie Thompson levelled the scores after being nicely set up by the impressive youngster Joe Coulton.
Warriors lead after 2sessions of play though as Callum Watson fired the home side back into the lead on 36 minutes when his sharp stickhandling was just too quick for the Sting rearguard to handle. Whitley import Andre Payette took a heavy blow towards the end of the 2nd period which unfortunately resulted in the experienced Canadian playing no further part in the match up.
The final period of play saw Warriors come close to extending their lead when Jordan Barnes effort after some nice work from Lawson Glasby was kept out by Zimozdra in the visitors net. Sutton were still firmly in the contest though and Warriors netminder Richie Lawson had to be at his best to keep out efforts from Johnson and Thompson as the visitors exerted some pressure on the Whitley defence.
Late on Sting opted to take a time out and pull their netminder for an extra skater as they looked for the game tieing goal however Warriors were able to fire home an empty netter through Harry Harley to claim a 4-2 victory over a very well organised and disciplined Sting outfit who were a credit to their coach Simon Butterworth. .
Callum Watson was chosen as Warriors Man of the Match for his display up front for Whitley while Sutton’s Lloyd Gibson was selected as Sting’s best player on the night.
Warriors assistant coach Dave Holland shared his views on Whitley’s victory over the Sting.
“It is a pleasing result, they are a well drilled side and they’ve come back in a good number of their previous games against good teams. For us to be able to get a 4-2 win against them is a good result as we always knew this was going to be a tough game.
“There netminder is one of the best in the league and he made a number of top saves, we’ve played against him for a number of years now so we expected him to be on his game. You can’t take anything away from Sutton tonight they worked hard right up until the end of the game.
“Ali Brummitt came back for us tonight, we weren’t sure how many shifts he’d get but he got a number of shifts and we were happy with how he did for us out on the ice. He’s a good solid defenceman he plays hard and passes the puck well so he should be a good addition.
“Looking ahead to next weekend we should have a similar squad available, Andre took a knock tonight which was to his ankle but he should be ok going forward.”
Warriors are next in action on Sunday when the Blackburn Hawks head to Whitley Bay for a cup encounter which gets underway at the normal 5pm face off time. Whitley have had the upper hand against the Hawks so far this season however the cup encounter promises to be a feisty affair between 2 of the more established sides in the NIHL North set up.