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Rayside-Balfour slides into fourth place

Canadians on both ends of lopsided games during weekend set 
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The Rayside-Balfour played a pair of lopsided games over the weekend, downing the Espanola Express by a count of 9-3, before suffering a 7-0 defeat at the hands of the Soo Eagles. File photo.

The idea of earning a weekend split is not the least bit new to the Rayside-Balfour Canadians of the NOJHL. This past weekend, however, might have featured a win and loss that were most diametrically opposed.

Just one night after enjoying their largest offensive outburst of the season courtesy of a 9-3 win over the Espanola Express, the Canadians surrendered seven for the fourth time this year, blanked 7-0 by the Soo Eagles.

The Canadians opened with one of their best periods of the year on Saturday, outshooting the visiting Express 20-4 and rewarded with a trio of goals from newcomer Bryce O'Brien, as well as Brett Whitehead and Chad Denault.

The Espanola squad offered their one true pushback of the contest through the first twelve minutes of the middle frame, deadlocking the game at 3-3 on a pair of tallies from Aaron Roschinsky and one from Riley Nadeau.

A go-ahead marker by Rayside's Noah Serré proved to be the beginning of the end for the visitors, as coach Dave Clancy went on to net five additional unanswered goals, posting a shot advantage of 53-21 by the time the final buzzer sounded.

Denault would cap off his hat trick with a pair in the third, Serré would add a second, with teammates Tristan Simm and Kaleb Peldjak also joining in on the fun.

It was an altogether different Rayside team that showed up 24 hours later, leaving goaltenders Cameron Lamour and Owen Johansson to fend for themselves for much of the encounter, with neither enjoying a stellar performance.

First period tallies from Chris Murphy and Brad Hofelich allowed the Eagles to hit the ground running, with the latter picking up his second midway through the game, joined on the scoresheet by Brent Jones and William Casey before the start of period three.

With the final outcome no longer in doubt, the U.S. based NOJHLers padded their lead with goals from Adam Ostrowski and Jones, with his second, while goaltender Kade Phipps recorded a 26-save shutout, stopping 11 shots in the third period alone.

Come Monday morning, Rayside-Balfour had dropped to fourth place in the West, accumulating 46 points with a record of 21-14-3-1. Thankfully, the team still holds a combined total of six games in hand over the Eagles and the Blind River Beavers, both of whom sit one point ahead of the Canadians.

The local juniors will have a chance to get some momentum built up this coming weekend with a three in three set, heading to Espanola on Friday, before hosting the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners (17-18-4-2) and Soo Thunderbirds (29-11-1-0) to close out the homestand.


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