Tigers keeping pace in the OJHL North division

November 22, 2017 · 0 Comments

By Jake Courtepatte

With a pair of points each over a week’s worth of action for both the Aurora Tigers and Newmarket Hurricanes, the Canes remain a step above in the OJHL’s North division standings.
Aurora was able to trounce the Whitby Fury 5 – 0 at home on Friday before falling 4 – 1 to the powerhouse Toronto Patriots on the road on Saturday.
Tiger fans saw a whopping total of 58 shots hit the Whitby net in Friday’s action at the Aurora Community Centre, though Whitby’s Luke Pearson stopped all 14 he saw in the first period.
Aurora finally broke open the scoring in the second, with Rizvan Mansurov, Tyler Davis, and Brock Welsh finding the back of the net, before Luca Esposito and Marcelo Pericao added another two in the third.
Bradley Van Schubert picked up his third shutout in sixteen games.
Riding their fifth win in the last seven games, the Tigers met some of the league’s hottest scorers in a trip to Toronto on Saturday night.
After Tiger captain Jake Bricknell was stopped early by a highlight reel dive from goalie Tyler Fassl, OJHL leading scorer Andrew Petrucci opened the scoring shortly after with a rebound opportunity on the powerplay.
Oliver Benwell capitalized in all alone before the end of the period, before Michael Boushy scored the only goal of the second to give Toronto a 3 – 0 lead.
Luca Esposito tipped a Matthew Ferrari point shot just over seven minutes into the final frame to cut the lead to two, though Brett Bannister provided the only other offense of the period for the Patriots for a 4 – 1 final score.
The win was Toronto’s league-leading nineteenth of the season.
“We just stuck to the system,” said Boushy. “We knew they were a good team coming in, but everything went well.”
Adding insult to injury for Aurora is the loss of veteran forward Tyler Davis for the next two games, assessed a misconduct in Saturday’s action for head contact.
That means almost two weeks of missed action for Davis, as the Tigers only game of the week falls on Friday at the Aurora Community Centre against the division rival Markham Royals.
The Royals sit two points back of the 13-8-1-1 Tigers for second in the North division, though the Tigers have two games in hand.
The Tigers are three points back of the Hurricanes for first in the division, who also went 1 – 1 over the weekend.
For stats, schedules, and more information, visit www.auroratigers.pointstreaksites.com.