Matskubo, Reid Score Goals in Loss to 73s

by Romano Di Franco

KEMPTVILLE, ON – The Nepean Raiders travelled down the 416 to visit the North Grenville Municipal Centre as they faced off against the Kemptville 73s for the fifth and final time this season. Kemptville is coming in with a respectable 4-1 record in their last five games while Nepean is 0-5 during the same span.

Joshua Branton (1-2, 5.02 GAA, 0.879 SV%) got the start in the Nepean Goal while Alex Musielak (4-3, 3.22 GAA, 0.917 SV%), occupied the goal for Kemptville.

It was Hunter Brazier, the leader in points and goals for Kemptville who opened the scoring with a shot from the left faceoff dot beating Branton to the glove side.

The 73s made it 2-0 at the eight minute mark as Nathan Merrett sent a shot from the high slot through a ton of traffic that Branton never saw.

Jack Matsukubo got the Raiders to within one as his blast from the low slot beat Musielak through the five-hole. Brandon Reinisch got the helper and followed it up with another assist as his perfect saucer pass found Nicolas Papineau in the slot and he made no mistake as scoring his sixth of the season to make it 2-2.

After 20 minutes the score was tied with Kemptville outshooting Nepean 12-8 in the process.

Hunter Brazier picked up his second of the game to restore the 73s lead but that lead also evaporated as Joshua Reid picked up his 12th of the season with Jordan Graham getting the assist.

Matthew O’Doherty made it 4-3 as the second period came to a close with Kemptville having the big edge in shots at 17-7.

Kemptville put the game out of reach with four goals in the third period. The lone goal came off the stick of Luke Posthumus who beat Musielak a la Alex Ovechkin to get his rookie leading 15th of the season.

Nathan Merrett (2G) was named the game’s first star, Ty Whyte (1G | 1A) took second star honours while Raiders’ forward Brandon Reinisch got the nod as the game’s third star.

Jack Matsukubo is named the Hardest Working Raider.

Nepean hosts the Hawkesbury Hawks on Sunday for a 2:30pm puck drop.

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