By Bill Johnson
The Atom Select Gryphons played an early game on Tuesday with a 5:15pm start at the Cambridge Hawks. The game started evenly with both teams creating opportunities to score, with the first significant chance going to the Hawks, as one of their forwards broke in on a breakaway at the 7:30 mark, but Ryan Kurt was up to the challenge and confidently turned the shot away.
The Hawks were able to get on the board in the 1st when Cohen Mina-Daly was able to bang in a rebound after Kurt was able to make the initial save. The best chance for the Gryphons came with about 37 seconds remaining in the period, when the Gryphons worked the puck back to big defensemen Jason Pearson who muscled a hard wrist shot squarely on net, but the Hawks goalie was well positioned to make the save and keep the score 1-0 at the end of the 1st period.
The second period was also a tightly contested affair, with the Hawks and Gryphons trading goals. At 8:51 Josh Zakhary from Cambridge skated past the Guelph defense to create a breakaway and fired his shot into the bottom left corner of the net to make it 2-0 Hawks. The visiting Guelph team replied quickly, when after some hard forechecking, Brayden Tomei found the loose puck in a goalmouth scramble and poked it over the line at 8:15 in the second. Cameron Johnston-Hallahan drew an assist on the play. The teams fought for possession of the puck in the neutral zone for the remainder of the period and after 40 minutes of play, the game remained tight, with the Hawks holding a slight 2-1 edge.
In the third period the Gryphons started to get into a bit of penalty trouble and the home Hawks took advantage of it. The Gryphons were able to effectively kill off the first penalty with some strong goaltending from Khari Eyers as he stood tall making several saves. However, the Hawks created an odd man rush shortly after the penalty expired, and scored with 6:57 remaining in the game on a goal by Quinton Douglas, assisted by Jamian Pimental. Later in the period, the Hawks struck on the powerplay, when a centering pass by Mathew Heran was wristed to the back of the net by Josh Zakhary with 4:34 left. The Gryphons tried to press the remainder of the game, but were not able to muster the offence they desired and the final whistle ended the game at 4-1 for the Hawks.