Spiders Take Down Gritty Loons

March 5, 2017

Spiders retake lead in East as playoff battle lines are drawn.

The Spiders held on for a victory Sunday in a game where it seemed equipment gods and the refs were conspiring against them.

First, Hank Long realized he forgot his helmet at home. Luckily for him, his wife came to the rescue. Hank’s frustration seemed to spill over as he had the pleasure of contributing to the long parade of Spiders entering the penalty box. The Loons are the highest penalized team in B3 East with the players rostered the night accounting for 142 of their 164 team penalty minutes. However, the officials seemed to find a majority of the offenses by the Spiders and the called a the few offenses on the Loons that were matchup penalties.

The game started off in an eerily similar fashion to a few other games this year. By the end of the first period, six of the ten tallies were netted. Yancey scored the first goal of the game just 2 minutes in followed by Joe Long only 30 seconds later. Then the penalty box parade began. Christian managed to add to the Spiders lead by netting a shorthanded goal putting the Spiders up 3-0.

The Loons decided they were not going to go down without a fight. Their bench was short with just nine skaters, however, they proved to be formidable. Their roster size has been diminishing for the past five game, however, their team this night accounted for 84% of their points this season. Within two and half minutes a blast from the point and a power play goal put the Loons on the doorstep of tying the game.

Yancey was having none of it. He bookended the period by receiving the breakout from Stalpes and a pass from Wilson to put the Spiders up 4-2 at the end of the first period.

The second period opened with Bedessem adding to the lead. A lot of conversation between players on each team and with each team conversing with the officials but at the end, the Spiders were leading 5-2.

Vandenberghe added a pre-wedding present to open the final period scoring. The third period, however, was the Loons best offensively. They bested the Spiders in shots, added two more goals and drove the Spiders to the penalty box for two more power plays.

In the end, the Spiders won. Won messy. Won while being agitated. Not every game will be perfect but there were times when things went perfectly. The team continues to gel but needs to do a better job not lowering themselves to the cheap play by the other team.

Spiders will play with a short bench on Thursday against the playoff seeking Fighting Piranhas.

Attendance: 10