After falling 6 – 5 to the Gold Miners in Cochrane on Friday, the Eastern Conference leading (33 – 8 – 2 – 2) Crunch faced the second place (31 – 9 – 2 – 1) Gold Miners in Kirkland Lake 24 hours later at the Joe Mavrinac Complex.
19 seconds before the halfway mark of the first, 20 year old Dustin Cordiero sunk his 35th of the season for the Crunch from Aviv Milner to give Cochrane a 1 – 0. Kirkland Lake’s Evan Bidenti scored his seventh of the season to even the game 1 – 1 at 11:12 of the period with Brayden Stortz and Dylan Holt adding assists. The NOJHL scoring leader, Hunter Atchison gave the Crunch a 2 – 1 lead at 18:04 of the first, Joseph Thielen and Jeran Knorr drew the assists on Atchison’s 43rd of the season.
Seamus Maguire’s 24th of the year gave the Crunch a 3 – 1 lead, at 10:04 of the second, from Knorr and Atchison . Logan Fredericks brought the Gold Miners within one with his 32nd of the season with Blake Anderson and Stortz adding assists at 18:01 of the second.
Scoring his second of the game, Fredericks tied it up at 4:20 of the third from Stortz and Marc-Antoine Arseneau. At 5:29 of the third, Jon Marzec gave the Crunch a 4 – 3 lead with his 18th of the season with John Stevenson and Jeremy McNeil drawing the assists. 40 seconds later, Knorr set up Atchison for his second of the contest to extend the Crunch lead to two at the 6:29 mark of the period. With three minutes left in the game, Marzec iced Cochrane’s 6 – 3 win over Kirkland Lake from Connor Lovie and Stevenson.
The Gold Miners will host the Soo Eagles in a 2:30 p.m Sunday afternoon matinee at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex in Kirkland Lake.
