by Romano Di Franco
RENFREW, ON – The Nepean Raiders made the 90km trek west to take on the Renfrew Wolves at the Ma-Te-Way Activity Center for the first of five meetings this season. The two teams will meet again in Renfrew one month from now while the final three pairings will be hosted at the Steve Yzerman Arena in Nepean. The Raiders came into Friday night’s with an 0-2 record while the Wolves sport a record of 1-1.
Connor Shibley got the start in goal for the Raiders while Sebastian Resar got the nod for the Wolves.
Renfrew’s Talon Duff opened the scoring just 41 seconds into the game after deflecting a Tyson Phare shot from the edge of the goal crease. Elvis Slack found the back of the net less than two minutes later to give the Wolves a quick 2-0 lead on the first two shots of the game.
The Raiders settled down and then responded with a goal of their own when Ryan Liverman stole the puck in the Nepean zone and created a break-away chance. Tyler Melvin jumped on the rebound and found Jack Hillier at the top of the paint. Hillier put into the yawning cage to make it a 2-1 game. Former Raider Tyson Tomasini got his 3rd of the season and Samuel Willits added another and the two teams went to the dressing rooms with Renfrew up 4-1. The shots were much closer with Renfrew having a 14-13 edge.
The Raiders special teams were put to the test in the second period with the Wolves having three straight powerplay chances. They capitalized on the third opportunity when Elvis Slack scored his second of the game with Ryan Livermore in the box for Charging.
After 40 minutes the Renfrew Wolves led 5-1 and outshot Nepean 28-21.
The Raiders made it respectable in the third after Nolan Mozer’s shot from the point was turned aside but by Resar gave up a big rebound that Tyler Melvin buried into the wide-open net to close the gap to 5-2. The final tally for the shots on net were 37-32 in favor of the Renfrew Wolves.
The Raiders special teams went 0-for-6 on the man advantage and gave up goals on 2 of 5 PKs.
The first star was Renfrew forward Elvis Slack (2G). The second star was Nepean Raider Tyler Melvin (1G, 1A) while the third star went to Charlie Johnson (2A) of the Wolves.
Jack Hillier was named the hardest working Raider as a result of his highlight-reel caliber goal.
The next game for the Raiders will be October 3 as they face the Kemptville 73s at the Steve Yzerman Arena in Nepean for a 2:30pm puck drop.
