Photo: Bob Davies

Coming off a 4 – 3 shootout win on the road in Saginaw, Michigan on Friday, February 10th, the fifth place Greyhounds took to the ice at the Memorial Gardens in Sault Ste Marie for a Sunday, February 12th afternoon matinee against the second place Sarnia Sting in a west division matchup.

3:08 into the opening period, Caleb Van De Ven sinks his first career OHL goal behing Sting goaltender Benjamin Gaudreau to give the Greyhounds a 1 – 0 lead with Julian Fantino and Connor Clattenburg adding the helpers on on Van De Ven’s goal. Ethan Wainwright finds the back of Greyhound netminder Charlie Schenkel at 6:38 to even the game 1 – 1 for Sarnia. Ryan Mast and Ethan Del Mastro notched the assists on Wainwright’s tying goal. Lukas Fischer scores the go-ahead goal for the Sting 7:19 into the first to give Sarnia a 2 – 1 lead. Sandis Vilmanis drew the lone contributor on Fischer’s third of the season. Scoring his 26th of the season at 4:18 of the second, Kalvyn Watson nets the Soo’s tying goal with Marco Mignosa setting up Watson’s tying goal. With the Stings third goal of the game unassisted, Christian Kyrou finds the back of Schenkel’s net 8:12 into the period to give Sarnia a 3 – 2 lead. 34 seconds later, Julian Fantino finds the back of Gaudreau’s net 34 seconds after Kyrou’s go-ahead goal to pull the Greyhounds even 3 – 3 at the 8:46 mark of the period with Jordan D’Intino adding the lone helper on Fantino’s seventh of the season.

22 seconds after the midway mark of the period, Brenden Sirizotti gives the hosts their first lead of the game with his 15th of the season with Matthew Virgilio and Mark Duarte setting up Sirizotti’s goal. Marco Mignosa gives the Soo a two goal lead to bring the game to 5 – 3 at 13:50 with Bryce McConnell-Baker and Kirill Kudryavstev drawing the assists at 13:50 of the middle stanza. Justin Cloutier scores his ninth of the season 2:11 into the final period with Duarte and Sirizotti registering the helpers on Cloutier’s goal. Sirizotti finds the back of Gaudreau’s net at 4:05 of the period to give the Greyhounds their second straight win with Cloutier and Virgilio adding the assists on Sirizotti’s 16th of the season. Sarnia goaltender Benjamin Gaudreau stopped 22 of 29 shots in the Sting’s 7 – 3 loss while Greyhound netminder Charlie Schenkel turned away 25 of 28 shots in the Soo’s 16th win of the 2022 – 2023 season.

Next action for the Greyhounds will be in Sault Ste Marie on Wednesday, February 15th for a 7:07 p.m start against the visiting Saginaw Spirit.