By: Daniel Vazzoler
It was an offensive onslaught from the Carleton Place Canadians as they beat the Kemptville 73’s on Sunday by a 7-1 score with seven different players getting a goal for Carleton Place.
The Canadians had a balanced attack against Kemptville as each forward line chipped in for a goal while the defencemen also created offence. Tim Theocharidis scored the lone goal for the blue-line group, but Cade Townend had a pair of assists while his partner, Brett Thorne, had three assists in the game.
“The balance has been really good so far,” Canadians coach Jason Clarke said. “We’ve playing four lines, everyone’s got specific roles and guys are liking their roles. At any given time, when all 12 forwards feel comfortable with their role and are enjoying their role, I think you’re going to get balanced scoring.”
It took until 5:31 left in the first period for Zach Tupker to get the game’s first goal, finishing off the Townend-Thorne connection with a snap shot that beat Nick Bond over the goaltender’s shoulder and clipped off the cross-bar on its way into the net.
Justin Cmunt put Carleton Place ahead 2-0 with 0:15 left in the first period but Eric Faith scored to cut the Canadians lead in half with just 0:03 left in the frame, beating Jeremie Forget as he tried to get across the crease to make the save.
“On Kemptville’s goal, you’ve got to give credit,” Clarke said. “They snuck a guy in behind one of our guys and we just got a little sleepy defensively. That was one of the things we talked about between the first and second periods. We have to be on it all the time, we can’t get sleepy.”
“We were trying to forget about that goal,” Townend added about the message in the first intermission. “Put that aside and keep building. We stuck to our game plan and came out with the win.”
Carleton Place responded in the second period with a trio of goals, including goals from Theocharidis and Connor Hill just 0:25 apart. Sam Allison scored the third goal of the period and was more relieved than excited in his goal celebration as the goal snapped a stretch of 15 games without a goal for the CCHL-rookie.
The Canadians ensured Kemptville didn’t have a chance in the third period to attempt a come-back as Forget was reduced to the role of spectator in the game as he faced one shot in the period. Meanwhile, Cooper Lukenda – who replaced Bond to start the third period – had 18 shots sent his way. Sam Knoblauch and Ben Tupker beat Lukenda to wrap up the scoring in the third.
Sunday’s game was just the second meeting between these two divisional opponents. The first came back on Sept. 10 which was a 4-3 win for Kemptville at the North Grenville Municipal Centre, in what was a disappointing performance from Carleton Place.
“We weren’t happy when we lost earlier in the season so we got a little bit of an edge [Sunday],” said Townend. “Physically we beat them and, obviously on the scoreboard we beat them.”
The win increased the Carleton Place winning streak to now 14 games and Clarke said keeping the winning streak alive starts in practice.
“You’ve got to be able to work on things you want in practice but you’ve got to play hard in practice,” he explained. “You practice hard, you have good habits in practice, those are going to translate into your game.”
The Canadians are back in action on Friday night when they host the Nepean Raiders less than two weeks after Carleton Place travelled to the Nepean Sportsplex and left with a 4-1 win on Oct. 29.
