by Romano Di Franco
NEPEAN, ON – The Nepean Raiders hosted the league leading Ottawa Junior Senators and their high-octane offense at the Nepean Sportsplex Steve Yzerman Arena on Wednesday night.
It was the fourth meeting of the season between the two teams with OJS having the upper hand winning all three previous games and outscoring Nepean by a combined 23-8 goal advantage. Their previous match-up was a tightly contested 4-2 game that was iced by an empty-netter by Thomas Freel.
Collin Mackenzie (1-0, 0.885 SV%, 2.67 GAA) got the start between the pipes for Ottawa while Nathan Loisel (2-6, 0.882 SV%, 4.68 GAA) got the start in the Raiders goal.
Jack Hillier opened the scoring sending the Raiders up 1-0 on just their second shot of the game. His seventh of the season came unassisted after stealing the puck from Jake Code in the Raiders zone and taking it all the way for a breakaway beating Mackenzie with a top-shelf backhand.
Simon Isabelle responded a minute later to tie the game at 1-1 and that’s how the period would end with OJS having the 17-7 shot advantage.
Ryan Liverman had the only goal in the second period to restore the Raiders lead at 2-1. The go-ahead goal came as Liverman streaked up the right wing and sent a bad-angle shot at the OJS net. The shot was easily stopped but the rebound deflected off the back skate of Junior Sens defenseman Isaac Landry and into the net. Tyler Melvin and Jack Matsukubo got the assists.
The teams traded PowerPlay chances in the period but the score remained 2-1 after 40 minutes with OJS outshooting Nepean 17-12 to take the overall lead at 34-19 in chances.
OJS tied it up again at 2-2 with a goal by Philippe Jacques who beat Nathan Loisel with a point shot with heavy traffic in front of the net.
Jack Hillier got his second of the game to put the Raiders ahead for the third time in the game. The goal came on a 2-on-1 with Anthony Rivard. Hillier roofed a shot over the glove of Mackenzie and just like that Nepean was ahead 3-2 with about six minutes left in the game.
The Junior Sens pulled Mackenzie for the extra attacker and it paid off with just 35.7 seconds in the game. Thomas Freel got the equalizer to tie the game at 3-3 on Ottawa’s 42 shot of the game snapping a shot from the right faceoff dot over Loisel’s glove.
The game went to overtime and the Raiders had the first scoring chance of the extra frame and also the last with Owen Hollingsworth burying his own rebound on the final shot of the game giving the Raiders the huge upset-win. Jack Hillier got the helper on the goal.
Raiders’ rookie Jack Hillier (2G | 1A) was named the game’s first star while Nepean netminder Nathan Loisel (41 saves on 44 shots) got the nod as second star. OJS goalie Collin Mackenzie (22 saves on 26 shots) was the third star.
Overtime hero Owen Hollingsworth (1G) was named the hardest working Raider.
The Raiders are in action again on Sunday when they host the Cornwall Colts at the Nepean Sportsplex Steve Yzerman Arena for a 2:30pm puck drop.
