Photos: Caleigh Fera – Points North Media
SUDBURY, Ont. – A three-point night from Keenan Quenneville, that included a pair of goals, helped send the Hearst Lumberjacks by the Greater Sudbury Cubs 6-2 Thursday in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League affair at Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.
The visiting Lumberjacks opened the scoring seven and a half minutes into the first period as multiple players barrelled their way to the net and saw Quenneville get the last touch that had him jam the puck under Cubs’ starter Mateo Beites.
Hearst added another at 13:51 when Ty Seymour blocked a shot at his own blueline then raced down the right wing before firing a feed across to Quenneville who calmly steered in his second of the stanza.
Greater Sudbury got one back off the stick of Mateo Signoretti a couple of shifts later as he benefitted from a diligent forecheck provided by teammate Lucas Antonioni that led to him lifting a backhand past the Lumberjacks’ Alexandre Boivin.
However, Hearst responded with a couple of late markers in the session to give them a 4-1 lead into the intermission.
Cole Miller began the outburst at 16:24 and he ripped a rocket upstairs from the top of the left circle that sent the water bottle flying as the puck roared into the top corner.
Chase Thompson then connected less than a minute later as he was set-up nicely by Henry Ouellet and sent a sizzler by Beites that saw his evening come to an end in favour of back-up Matthew Vahramian.
Moving to the middle frame, the guests kept it going when Ouellet scooped up a rebound off a William Pâquet attempt and stuffed it into the open side.
Pulling back to within three midway through the match-up, Greater Sudbury’s Daks Klinkhammer fired a pass to the target that clipped off the skate of Nolan Newton and went in.
The scoreline remained the same until deep into the third when Hearst iced the road victory as Quenneville fed Ty McKay for an empty netter to wrap-up the night’s scoring.
With the result, the Lumberjacks improve to 9-3-0-0 and in defeat the Cubs drop to 5-5-0-0.
