Spider Effort Goes South, Fall To Northern Horde 4-1

Nov. 20, 2011

There are lots of excuses that could be made for the Spiders 4-1 loss to the Northern Horde on Saturday night.

• A short bench.
• Playing without their top two returning scorers.
• Ran into a hot goaltender.
• A let down after the tough win over the Zephyrs last week.
• Looking ahead to the game against the M’s, defending C2 champions.

The fact is, the Spiders played the worst period in the history of the franchise and couldn’t recover.

Less than a minute into the game the Horde picked off a D-to-D pass and skated in alone on goaltender Brian Dow. Dow was caught out of position by the ill-timed turnover and the Horde player put them up 1-0.

The Spiders answered three minutes later as Tim Forcelle picked up a loose puck in the crease and shoveled it to Dave Schliesman who scored into a wide open net to tie the game at 1-1.

The Northern Horde only needed 17 seconds to retake the lead. The Spiders couldn’t clear the puck out of the zone and a wrister from the left circle was deflected past Dow. Five minutes later the Northern Horde extended the lead to 3-1 as the Spiders defense got caught watching the puck cycling behind the net rather than covering a man. A centering pass between the circles and a one-timer put the Horde up 3-1 with 8:58 left in the first period.

If the Spiders are looking for good news, it’s that they finally got the feet moving and out played the Northern Horde for the final 2½ periods. Unfortunately they couldn’t get any closer as the Northern Horde defense kept the puck to the outside and their goaltender efficiently turned away the shots that did get through. An empty net goal with Dow pulled for an extra attacker made the final 4-1.

The Spiders will next take the ice on Sunday, November 27 as they try to skate off their Thanksgiving feasts. There will be no room for anything less than their best effort as the opponent is the defending C2 champion M’s.