Photo by IceHockeyMedia
Whitley Warriors ended 2016 with a game against the Deeside Dragons on home ice at Hillheads on Sunday evening at Whitley Bay.
Whitley were able to ice a stronger line up on Sunday than they had done the previous day when they travelled south to face Sutton as d man Dan Pye and a number of young forwards came back into the reckoning. This enabled Warriors to use 3 forward lines and 2 defensive pairings throughout the contest with the flexibility to alter lines as the game developed.
Deeside grabbed the game’s opening goal after just 55 seconds though when import Filip Supa fired home for the visitors. Warriors soon had chances of their own as Shaun Kippin went close before a surge forward from the blue line from Harry Harley created a good opportunity for Liam Smedley however Dragons goalie Jonah Armstrong was able to thwart Whitley’s number 8 from close range. Whitley went onto dominate the remainder of the period with Niall Simpson, DJ Good and Jordan Barnes all testing the reflexes of the Deeside goaltender.
The middle session of play saw both sides get on the scoresheet with youngster Kane Taylor making it 2-0 to the visitors before Shaun Kippin grabbed Warriors first goal of the evening after 27 minutes of play. After 2 periods of play Warriors had out shot the Dragons by 44 shots to 17 and it was just the brilliance of Deeside netminder Jonah Armstrong that kept the visitors in the lead.
The game was turned on its head in the last 12 minutes of action as Warriors tied the game up after 48 minutes when the puck trickled into the Dragons net following a cruel deflection off a Deeside blue liners skate with Callum Watson claiming the goal as he was the last Warrior to touch the puck.
Just 3 minutes later Shaun Kippin fired Warriors into the lead when he beat Armstrong with a fine strike with Jordan Barnes and Harry Harley picking up the assists. Youngster Anthony Wetherall almost extended Whitley’s lead shortly afterwards when he fired narrowly wide after he had used his pace to break away from the visitors defence.
Whitley did make it 4-2 late on though when Harry Harley grabbed an empty netter to make sure of victory for the Warriors after Dragons had pulled their netminder as they went in search for the game tieing goal. Warriors Man of the Match went to young d man Craig Johnson for a composed showing in defence while Dragons netminder Jonah Armstrong was chosen as Dragons top player on the night for a superb display in nets in which he saved 55 of the 58 shots he faced.
Warriors Bench Coach Dave Holland shared his thoughts on the match with Dragons and his feelings on the season up to now.
“Excellent result, Deeside have been on a good run lately so for us to come back and get the result we did is very pleasing.
“We swapped the lines a little in the 3rd period , we went with the guys who were working the hardest for us. Young Wetherell worked hard and he was unlucky not to get a goal when he went 1 on 1 with their goaltender.
“When you look at the start we had to the season to where we are now we’ve made good progress as a team and we are happy with that.
“We are going to take it one game at a time our next 2 games are Solway and Billingham when we get back onto the ice in the New Year which will both be very tough so we are just taking it game by game and we’ll see where we end up.”
Warriors are now without a game until the New Year when they travel to Solway on Saturday January 7th and then face local rivals the Billingham Stars the following day on home ice.