Whitley Warriors had a busy time of it over the weekend as David Longstaff’s side took on Telford on the road on Saturday evening before a home game against the Solihull Barons on Sunday night at their Hillheads base on North Tyneside.
Warriors went down to a 5-0 loss against Telford on Saturday in a game that was called to an end after 40 minutes of play due to insufficient ice time being available. Warriors opted to leave the ice on 24 minutes after Andre Payette and Dean Holland had been ejected from the game by referee Matthew Gillingham. The game did subsequently restart however it could not be completed due to the time constraints.
The following evening Warriors hosted the Solihull Barons who started the evening 1 place and 1 point below Whitley in the NIHL North standings. Warriors operated with 3 forward lines and rotated 5 d men throughout the contest as Whitley were missing around 5 players who were missing due to suspension, injury and unavailability.
Warriors had some early opportunities to take the lead as Ben Richards skilfully got the better of the Barons defence before a stinging shot from Dean Holland was turned away by Solihull netminder Josh Nicholls. Barons then grabbed the game’s opening goal when Thomas Soar netted a sharp powerplay strike for the visitors after 8 minutes of play. Whitley were creating numerous openings of their own though and Joe Stamp blasted Warriors level with a sweet strike on 17 minutes with David Longstaff and Callum Watson bagging the assists. Barons went into the 1st intermission holding the lead though after Niklas Ottosson fired past Richie Lawson with just 35 seconds of the period left to play.
The middle session of play saw both sides have powerplay opportunities however the only goal of the period came when the sides were even handed when Edward Eaton picked up the puck at the far post and made no mistake with a smart finish that put the visitors 3-1 ahead in an entertaining end to end game between 2 of the top sides in the division.
Warriors started the 3rd period on the front foot and a slick interplay between David Longstaff and Callum Watson almost resulted in the home side grabbing a goal on 49 minutes. Whitley did make it 3-2 5 minutes later though when Shaun Kippin slotted home from just in front of the net with Callum Watson and Joe Stamp involved in the build up play. Solihull extended their lead just a minute later though as Dale White slotted home for the visitors from just inside the blue line to the delight of the away bench and the small group of fans who had travelled up from the midlands to watch their side.
Late on Whitley pulled their goaltender Richie Lawson so they could get an extra attacker out onto the ice as Warriors looked for late goals. However it was Barons who grabbed a late empty net goal though through Thomas Soar which saw the Barons claim a 5-2 success and move above Warriors in NIHL North Division 1 table. Whitley out shot Barons by 54 shots to29 over the 60 minutes of action illustrating just how many opportunities Warriors were able to create over the course of the contest.
D man Joe Stamp was chosen as Warriors Man of the Match for an accomplished display on the blue line while Jacob Smith picked up the visitors Man of the Match accolade.
Warriors Coach David Longstaff shared his thoughts on his side’s display against Solihull.
“We played well versus Barons, we’ve been on a good streak of winning games lately but I don’t think we’ve played as well during that run as we did tonight.
“Their netminder was playing really well, I don’t think we’ve seen a netminder play that well against us since I came back to Whitley Bay at the start of last season. I can fault anyone’s effort at all tonight we gave everything out there, we might have tired a little bit towards the end but that’s just because we were missing 5 or 6 players from our squad.
“Joe (Stamp) was excellent for us tonight, that was the real Joe out there this evening. We hope we can get him in the line up as much as possible, he can’t always train due to work commitments but when we can get him on the ice it’s a bonus for us as he has real quality.
“Looking ahead we’ve got a double header coming up and our confidence is high as we’ve been doing well and we’ll be going into the games versus Sutton and Deeside looking to take the points.”
Warriors have a weekend off next weekend before a double header of games over the weekend of the 17th/18th December when Whitley play Sutton away from home on the Saturday before a home game against Deeside on the Sunday.