TIMMINS, Ont. – A couple of nifty assists provided by rookie Reece Liu helped propel the Timmins Rock to a 5-2 triumph over the French River Rapids Tuesday in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action at McIntyre Arena.
French River began the scoring 3:20 into the match-up when Michael Leech corralled a loose puck in the neutral zone, then wheeled into Timmins territory and wired a rising shot over the glove of Rock starter Graham Gee.
Tying it up just over five minutes later, the home side controlled a face-off back to the point which allowed Tenzin Nyman to fire a crisp pass across to Brant Romaniuk, who promptly pumped it past Rapids’ netminder Zachary Burleigh.
With the tally, Romaniuk ran a consecutive game point streak to 12.
Capitalizing on a two-man advantage, Timmins took the lead after when Liu put a feed on the stick of Ryan Armitage, who quickly swatted it in from between the circles.
Heading to the second stanza, the Rock went up by a pair while shorthanded as they broke out on a two-on-one that resulted in Alexis Tremblay stuffing in a chance after an Armitage attempt.
Pulling back to within one midway through the contest, French River’s Noah Szczurek was gifted a glorious opportunity at the top of the crease that he blasted in.
Action in the final frame saw Timmins tack on some insurance with 6:33 to go as Liu darted down the right wing into the French River zone and put a perfect pass across to Clark Scaddan, who hammered in his 15th of the season.
Capping off the victory in the late going, Scaddan cranked a blast into an empty net from the blueline
The victory was the Rock’s 30th of the season as they improved to 30-15-2-1.
In defeat, the Rapids fell to 16-29-1-2 overall.
Game Photos:
Thomas Perry – The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
