Photo Credit: Freeze Frame Photos

After finishing the round robin undefeated in St Catharines, Ontario at the 2023 Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association (OFSAA) ‘AA’ Hockey Championships, the (3-0) St Mary’s Knights took to the ice for the quarter finals against the (2-1) Lambton Lancers.

With a delayed Lancer penalty call, Carter Lidstone picks up a Nik Vecchio rebound to the Knights opening goal under Lambton goaltender Sean Shanahan at 6:28 of the first to give St Mary’s a 1 – 0 lead with Kyle Scarfone adding the other helper on Lidstone’s goal. At 8:38 of the second period, Nathan Palmer fires a snapshot from the top of the right faceoff circle to be tipped by Knight Lucas Green to bring St Mary’s lead to 2 -0. Lambton’s defenseman Craig Richardson rifles a snapshot from the right blueline through traffic to find the back of St Mary Jaxon Alexander net over the grade 12 netminder’s catcher to pull the Lancers within one with 36 seconds remaining in the second. Zach Watson added the lone contributor on Richardson’s goal. 19 seconds before the halfway mark of the third and Carmine Perna lying on the ice in front of Lambton’s net, the Knight forward jumps up to fire St Mary’s third of the game past Shanahan to increase the lead 3 – 1 for the 2023 NOSSA champions. Daniel Bumbaco and Gabe Zimbaro drew the assists on Perna’s goal. Miller Mallioux sinks Lambton’s second of the game to pull the Lancers within one at 7:47 with Roen Douglas contributing on the goal. With Shanahan on the Lancer bench for an extra attacker, Zimbaro fires an empty goal from just inside the Knights blueline to give the St Mary’s a 4 – 2 quarter final with with ten seconds left in the contest. Koen Kurylo and Caden MacInnes had the assists on Zimbaro’s empty goal.

This afternoon’s win was a great team effort, worked hard and stayed disciplined. That was the quarters so tomorrow morning we play the semis against Paris who we beat this morning. We need to play our game and continue to compete. If we stay out of the box and continue to dictate the play offensively we should have success. Their players have a AAA game tonight back in Sarnia so once we got up by two they left to make the drive back. Their coaching staff addressed it with us after the game and were very classy,” said Knights coach Frank Medaglia.

The Knights will now head to the 2023 OFSAA ‘AA’ Hockey Championships semi final to take on the Regiopolis Notre Dame of Kingston, Ontario in an 8:15 a.m puck drop on Thursday, March 23rd.