St. Catharines Mountainview Homes Falcons

Falcons flop, Thorold ties series

21-Mar-2006 · 1:00am

Penalties, penalties, and more penalties. The Falcons spent plenty of time inside the penaly box in the Thorold Arena Monday night as the Thorold Blackhawks skated away with a crushing 9-1 blow against the St. Catharines Mountainview Homes Falcons in Game #2 of their best-of-seven semifinal series.

GOALS BY PERIOD
TEAM	1ST	2ND	3RD	TOTAL
	0	1	0	1
	0	3	6	9

Disappointment is an understatement! The Falcons' goaltenders Sean Hall and Alex Wyse combined for a total of 9 goals allowed on 42 shots by Thorold. Hall was pulled from the Falcons net at the 12:52 mark of the third period after allowing seven goals.

The defense didn't help matters, as shot after shot was taken on Hall and Wyse. Incomplete passes while trying to clear the zone and bad give-aways were apparent all night. Thorold seemed to uncover the Falcons weakness and attack it for 60 minutes.

The Falcons offense wasn't able to generate much in the Thorold end as well, with St. Catharines being called for penalty after penalty, a few times putting two men in the box and giving Thorold a 5-3 advantage. Most of the infractions called by the official (Gage) were legit, so unlike Game #1, poor penalty calls were not the case in Thorold Monday night.

John Falzoi of Thorold opened the scoring for Thorold early in the second period after a scoreless first period between the two clubs. Falzoi beat Sean Hall to give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead just 34 seconds into the 2nd period. Thorold jumped to 2-0 lead after Joe Koudys netted a power-play goal at the 4:48 minute mark of the same period.

Falcons forward and playoff scoring leader Nick Petriello recorded his 6th goal of the playoffs, a power-play marker, on a pass from Chris Stevenson at the 8:34 mark of the second period to beat Blackhawks netminder Sean Ramanauskas and cut Thorold's lead to 2-1.

That would be as close as the Falcons could get Monday night as Thorold went on a tear in the third period, notching 6 goals against the defenseless Falcons. The Blackhawks recorded 3 power-play goals on the night, while Joey Martin notched two goals, and John Falzoi and Steve Zmudczynski recorded two points each.

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW THE LINK TO THE GHL'S GAME SUMMARY

Shots for the evening were in favour of Thorold, 42-21. The Falcons stopped 33, while the Blackhawks goalie turned away 20.

Can the Falcons rebound from Monday night's embarrassing loss on the road? The series is all tied up at (1-1) and it's back to square one for the Falcons. The series heads back to St. Catharines Tuesday night for Game #3 inside the Jack Gatecliff Arena. The puck drops at a special time of 7:00pm. Don't be late fans as the 'Jack' will fill up quick and you don't want to miss a great game where the semifinal series lead is up for grabs once again!

#	DATE	RECENT FALCONS MATCH-UPS	SCORE
P5	10-Mar-2006	Game 5 - FORT ERIE @ ST CATHARINES	5 - 1 W
P6	17-Mar-2006	Game 1 - THOROLD @ ST CATHARINES	3 - 2 W
P7	20-Mar-2006	Game 2 - ST CATHARINES @ THOROLD	9 - 1 L

GHL PLAYOFFS - ROUND #1 - ST. CATHARINES DEFEATS FORT ERIE (4-1)
GM	DAY	DATE	AWAY	SCORE	HOME
1	FRI	03-Mar-06	FORT ERIE	1 - 6	ST CATHARINES
2	SAT	04-Mar-06	ST CATHARINES	4 - 3	FORT ERIE
3	TUE	07-Mar-06	FORT ERIE	5 - 2	ST CATHARINES
4	WED	08-Mar-06	ST CATHARINES	4 - 3	FORT ERIE
5	FRI	10-Mar-06	FORT ERIE	1 - 5	ST CATHARINES