by Romano Di Franco
The Nepean Raiders played out the final game of the season on St. Patrick’s Day by visiting the Brockville Braves at the Brockville Memorial Centre. Nepean came off a 4-1 loss to the Kemptville 73s whereas the Brockville Braves were fresh off a 4-2 victory against the Smiths Falls Bears. For the starting goalies, John Gedraitis was in goal for Nepean and Nate Gillis who was 2-1-1 in six appearances got the start for Brockville.
The Raiders saved their best offense for this last game by scoring two quick goals from Andrew Thompson and Luka Benoit. Thompson’s goal was his first of the season assisted from Zack Frimuth and Nick Houben. Benoit’s marker was his team-leading 26th goal of the campaign. Peter Freel and Tyler Smith contributed to the goal.
The Brockville Braves appeared to have cut Nepean’s lead in half. That wasn’t the case as Kayden Buller’s tally was waived off for goalie interference. The Raiders continued to pound in goals when Carter Williamson scored his twelfth goal of the year assisted from Nick Houben and Deklyn Campbell. Brockville overcame the no goal call on a deflected goal by Aiden Urbach. Nepean added one more goal in the period on Peter Freel’s nineteenth goal of the year on an easy tap-in goal which also came on the powerplay.
Nepean went on to outshoot the Brockville Braves 16-7.
The Braves began the second period on goal from Hunter Robitaille assisted from Jake Fisher and Vital Denis. The Raiders restored their three goal advantage on Tristan Konobelj’s tenth goal of the season assisted from Andrew Thompson.
Brockville would add three more goals from Gavin Clarke, Nathan Carson and Hunter Robitaille who scored twice in the second period.
Despite that, the Raiders still outshot the Braves 16-8.
Notably, both teams started the third period changing goalies. For instance, the Raiders put in Otsirakatste Brant in net for the Raiders and Nicholas Periard was put in goal to start that period.
Nepean would score the last two goals of the game from David Taylor and Peter Freel respectively. Taylor’s goal was his third of the season and the eventual game winning goal. Freel’s tally was his twentieth goal of the campaign and his second goal of the game.
For the three star selection, with two goals and one assist Peter Freel was named the third star of the game for the Nepean Raiders. With two goals as well, Hunter Robitaille was named the game’s second star for the Braves. Finally, with the game winning goal it was David Taylor who was given the third star of the game for the Raiders.
Six different players have had multiple point performances and they were Peter Freel, Nick Houben, Dekyln Campbell, Luka Benoit, Tyler Smith and Andrew Thompson.
Houben, Taylor and Dylan Pollock each played their final game with the Raiders as they will move on to the next thing in their careers.
The Nepean Raiders want to sincerely thank everyone for all of their support and we will see you next year.
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