Lincs upset by Cyclones; take Sugar Kings to the limit

Oliver Lacko scores his second goal of the game during the St. Marys Lincolns’ 3-2 overtime loss on Nov. 23 to the Elmira Sugar Kings.

By Spencer Seymour

Despite dropping two straight games, it’s hard to imagine the St. Marys Lincolns having two more different games than they did on Nov. 21 in Listowel and Nov. 23 in Elmira.

After walking into Listowel and having one of their best outings of the season on Nov. 16, picking up a 4-0 win, the Lincolns were on the receiving end of a 4-0 shutout at the hands of the Cyclones, in a game head coach Jeff Bradley called “a complete no-show.”

“Nothing went right,” Bradley told the Independent. “The game prior (on Nov. 16), I thought, was one of our more complete games of the season. Then a week goes by and we show up (on Nov. 21), and we were there in person, but we didn’t even have a handful of guys who wanted to play that game. It was incredibly disappointing. Not a single part of our game was in order.”

A scoreless first period was followed by a three-goal second period by the Cyclones, with Jack O’Donnell scoring less than two minutes into the middle stanza. Bradley Wilhelm and Clark deBoer also scored in the second, with Dylan Szymanowski finding the back of the net in the third. Goaltender Ethan Kowatsch made 28 saves to earn the shutout, and former Lincoln Thomas Paleczny earned a pair of assists.

Bradley gave full marks to the Cyclones, who were exactly as tough as the Lincolns knew them to be.

“We didn’t respect our opponent,” said Bradley. “We thought we’d roll in there and beat the 11th-placed team. We spoke about it in our pregame meeting that Listowel may not have the roster that the Sutherland Cup championship team had, but they work hard, they’re very organized, they’re very well-coached and because we owned that entire game a week before, they were going to do everything they could to win that game. I give them a lot of credit; they played great and we could not get a single thing going.”

In the dying moments of the game, Lincs’ captain Chase MacQueen-Spence inadvertently hit Paleczny into the boards from behind, earning a one-game suspension. Defenceman James MacGregor missed both games due to a two-game suspension, stemming from a late-game hit on Nov. 16.

Great effort in Elmira goes unrewarded in overtime loss

The humbling defeat to Listowel demanded a big response 48 hours later when the Lincolns took on the high-powered Elmira Sugar Kings, and while the Lincolns ended up falling 3-2 in overtime, Bradley was thrilled with his team’s performance.

“I absolutely loved the way we played,” Bradley said. “Right from the start, we came to play and that started with Lincoln (Moore), Owen (Voortman) and Devun (Colebrook). That line with (Jacob) Montesi and (Owen) Kalp set the tone for the next shift. Lincoln went out and hit a guy, and then Devun hit a guy, and Owen hit a guy. It just set the tone for the next shift, which was the (Ryan) Hodkinson line, and they continued it and it was just one good shift after another.”

The Lincolns controlled the majority of the play throughout the game and opened the scoring at the 7:39 mark of the first when Oliver Lacko put home a rebound after a strong wraparound play by Hodkinson, who earned an assist along with Kalp.

In the second, Alex Rossi fired a long-range shot that snuck by the glove of Brogan Colquhoun, who was otherwise sharp with 28 saves on the night.

Ryan Cornfield made his mark against his old team when he jammed home a powerplay goal to put the Sugar Kings ahead 2-1 later in the second. The goal came on a five-minute powerplay for Elmira, the result of a major penalty assessed to Luke McMillan for kneeing on Sam Ratcliffe.

Just two-and-a-half minutes into the third, Lacko scored his second of the night, this time assisted by Ethan Weir and Jack Clarke, to tie the game 2-2. The game stayed deadlocked until the end of the third, sending it into overtime where another former Lincoln came up big as Kyle Morey fired home the game-winner.

Bradley talked about the ups and downs of the weekend, noting the performance in Elmira reassured the team the loss to Listowel wasn’t who they were.

“I was talking to Pat (Powers) on Friday afternoon, and we went down the lineup and I talked about how much I love our team, and then we got beat like we did and you’re sitting there Saturday morning or on the drive home thinking, ‘Maybe we’re not as good as I thought.’ But then you have a game like we had in Elmira, and even though we lost, you see how they competed and you feel, ‘No, we are good.’

“In our pregame meeting, Mike (Herman) stepped up and said, ‘There are guys underperforming in here, and it’s time to step up and do your job,’ and they did it, and credit to them,” Bradley continued. “They wanted to win that game and they did everything they could to do it. I think it’s something we can build on.”

The Lincolns now stare down the biggest test of their season as they face the best team in the entire Greater Ontario Hockey League (GOHL), the undefeated Cambridge RedHawks who have won all 23 games so far this year, on Nov. 28. Bradley said the squad is excited for the challenge.

“We’re looking forward to getting a chance against a top team in the league,” Bradley said. “This Friday is a great opportunity for us. We showed against Listowel that if we are not engaged and ready to play, we could lose to anybody. We showed against Elmira that when we are engaged, we can compete with anybody. We’ll put a gameplan together, and we know we’re capable of doing it, but it’s on the players to execute and to do it on a consistent basis.”