Whitley Warriors entertained the Sutton Sting on Sunday evening on home ice at Hillheads Ice Rink in Whitley Bay. Warriors dedicated the game to their supporter Bobby Dixon and his family after the recent sad passing of Bobby. Bobby was well known throughout hockey circles and a minute’s applause took place in his honour prior to the game’s face off.
Warriors were able to take to the ice with a strong squad of players though import Andre Payette was missing from the Whitley line up due a hand injury while Ben Richards was unavailable for the match up. Sting travelled up to the north east with a relatively short bench however all of the visitors prominent players did make the trip up to Tyneside.
Once the action got underway Warriors were able to establish a quick lead as Jordan Barnes fired Whitley ahead with 5 minutes on the clock after he had been nicely set up by player/coach David Longstaff. Under a minute later Warriors were able to extend their lead when DJ Good fired home from close range to the delight of all the Warriors supporters in attendance. Whitley continued to pressurise the visitor’s defence and Shaun Kippin almost made it 3-0 with 15 minutes on the clock when Sutton netminder Dmitri Zimozdra was just able thwart the Warriors forward.
With only seconds left in the opening period Sting got themselves on the scoresheet and back into the game when they launched a swift counter attack with resulted in Charlie Thompson firing past Whitley netminder Richie Lawson. Sutton went onto level the scores up just after the midway point of the game when a deflected effort from Matt Jeffcock found its way into the back of the Warriors net. The announcement of the assists on Sutton’s 2nd goal were met with amusement on the visitors bench as youngster Joe Coulter was given an assist despite him playing no part on his sides game levelling goal.
Whitley then ran into a little penalty trouble as referee Wardell handed out 3 minor penalties to the home side in quick succession with Martin Crammond, Dean Holland and Dan Pye all fouling foul of the officials. Warriors penalty killing unit were at the top of their game though as they were not only able to kill off the penalties but they also grabbed a short handed goal when the in form Callum Watson fired his side back into the lead with 35 minutes played.
Warriors got their first powerplay opportunity of the night 4 minutes into the 3rd period and Whitley made full use of their man advantage as Callum Watson grabbed his 2nd goal of the evening just 32 seconds into the powerplay when he lit the lamp with the assists going to David Longstaff and Shaun Kippin. Both sides had further powerplay opportunities in the match up however no further goals came and Whitley were able to claim a 4-2 victory and their 2nd success over Sutton on home ice in the last fortnight.
Callum Watson was chosen as the Warriors man of the match for his brace of goals and energetic display on the wing while Stings long serving d man James Goodman was selected as the visitor’s best player on display by the Warriors coaching staff.
Warriors power forward Jordan Barnes shared his views on the game.
“It was a good result for us tonight, the whole team played well, we got the win which is the most important thing. It was a little nerve-racking playing with Lobby [David Longstaff] however I grabbed the early goal and that settled my nerves a bit. I’ve played with Lobby a few times in the past and it’s great as he can just set players up like he did with me tonight for my goal.
“We trained hard during the week going into this weekend’s game and we will be training hard again this week going into the double header with Telford and Solihull next weekend. The game down at Telford will be tough as they are strong at home. Games against Solihull are always feisty ones the kind of games I like so that should be a great physical game as well.
“We are on a great winning streak at the minute so we just have to keep doing what we are doing, Andre [Payette] should be back next weekend as well so that’s a further boost for us all as well going into our double header of games.”
Warriors take on the Telford Tigers on the road next Saturday night in a league fixture down in Shropshire before taking to home ice once again next Sunday when the Solihull Barons are the visitors for a NIHL North league encounter that gets underway at 5pm on North Tyneside.