FRENCH RIVER – The surging Rayside-Balfour Canadians racked up another victory Saturday as they stumped the French River Rapids 7-2 in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play Saturday at Noelville Arena.
Having yet to taste defeat in regulation time so far in 2020, Rayside-Balfour opened the scoring 8:17 into the contest at the Canadians rookie duo saw Matthew Belanger finish off a Nicholas DeGrazia feed for the lone marker of the frame.
In the second stanza, Belanger bagged his second of the night just 1:17 while DeGrazia notched his team-leading 30th, which also tops all league rookies, at 8:39 to make it 3-0.
Rayside-Balfour kept coming and added to their cushion thanks to Zacharie Giroux just over three minutes later while DeGrazia put in a shorthanded marker after that as the guests went up by five after 40 minutes.
In the final frame, they saw Giroux and DeGrazia score once more before the Rapids’ Kyle Avery added two late markers for his side to finish off the night offensively.
Nicholas Heinzle made 36 saves to record the win for RBC while French River netminder Sebastian Woods saw 31 attempts put his way in defeat.
