The St. Maximillian Kolbe Mustangs fell to the King City Lions 5-3 in quite a nail-biter in YRAA Tier 1 hockey last Thursday afternoon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mustangs went up against a Lions team in good form. The Lions were coming off a 7-3 victory against Newmarket High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, the Mustangs were coming off two consecutive defeats against Stouffville and St. Theresa Of Lisieux. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lions came out swinging in the first period and took advantage on the power play. Gavin Torkhoff ripped a point shot that trickled through Mustangs netminder John Paul Prohilo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took the Mustangs a little bit of time to get into the game and a few saves from Prohilo surely helped with that. He denied Christian Velocci on the breakaway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the second period, Mustangs forward Zaid Soliman showcased to every spectator that he is able to create moments of magic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soliman went coast to coast, bobbing and weaving through Lions players before sniping one past Blake Bowler to tie it up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly after, the Mustangs briefly took the lead. On the power play, a slick pass from Gabriel Oldenhof found Cayden Connelly at the point. The defenceman saw his shot hit the back of the net. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lions, unfazed by going down by one goal, seemed to have taken their game up a notch. Captain Michael Critelli dispossessed a Mustangs defenceman in the offensive zone thanks to his relentless forecheck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Critelli found David Paglia all alone in front and he tied the game right up at two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the third, the Lions opened up the floodgates. Critelli, Velocci and Paglia added three goals as the Lions downed the Mustangs in Schomberg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the game, head coach and team manager Bradley Matwijec said that defensive zone is the biggest area of improvement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBig time. The first three games (of the year) we were trying to sort that out. We are now figuring that out. The guys feel I have the best defenceman in David Paglia. It\u2019s just getting him ice, but not overusing him,\u201d Matwijec said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have a couple of other kids that are good hard workers. Then it\u2019s team defence. It\u2019s your forwards getting back and helping. When we play team defence, we feel we can be a really good hockey team.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the other locker room, the Mustangs have lost some players from their starting lineup due to hockey commitments outside of school. Assistant coach Sal Di Maria praised the call-ups for their efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur AP players really stepped up today. They helped us in the back end. Tight game all game. Couple of bad calls. Couple of bad changes. It could have been a different game,\u201d Di Maria said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have two games left, both winnable games. We can come out with two wins and hopefully finish mid-table in order to play a decent team in the playoffs. Everyone makes the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SMK took on Cardinal Carter this past Tuesday as one of their final games of the season. Results are up on YRAA.com. Prior to the game, the Mustangs were 1-4 on the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the Lions, the boys are 2-4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They play Sacred Heart at the Trisan Centre Thursday at 2:30 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Robert Belardi<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The St. Maximillian Kolbe Mustangs fell to the King City Lions 5-3 in quite a nail-biter in YRAA Tier 1 hockey last Thursday afternoon. The Mustangs went up against a Lions team in good form. The Lions were coming off a 7-3 victory against Newmarket High School. On the other hand, the Mustangs were coming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/2022-03-10-03.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}