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| PRESS RELEASES |
| RMC in first place: Hockey Paladins trounce Guelph
Royal Military College Paladins sit atop the Mid East division today, after they whipped the Guelph Gryphons 11-4 in an Ontario University Athletics hockey game Saturday night. "Although we have a lot of young guys in the lineup we have high expectations for ourselves and first place is where we want to be," said RMC coach Kelly Nobes. "I don't want to say I'm not surprised [to be there] but that's the level of expectation I have for the team and the level of expectation the team has for itself is to win every game we play." The Paladins were coming off a 3-3 tie Friday night with the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks, a game RMC led 3-1 going into the third period and one that Laurier tied in the final 51 seconds of regulation time. "The guys were extremely disappointed after tying Laurier," Nobes said. "I felt Laurier has a great hockey team, they have a lot of major-junior players, they're a highly skilled team, very big, and they've had some success early in the season. "Teams of the past at RMC would have been satisfied with a point out of that game but our guys were very disappointed that we'd give up that game. "That maybe motivated us a little bit more for the Saturday game." The Paladins, who have lost only once in five games to open the season, have six points, four more than the second-place Queen's Golden Gaels. Queen's, the only other team in the division with a win after two weeks of play, finally got rookie coach Kirk Muller his maiden victory Saturday night, 3-2 in overtime over visiting Laurier. RMC, 2-1-2, got three goals in the space of just over three minutes late in the first period Saturday night at Constantine Arena to break open a one-goal game. Roman Srutek's first of two goals, unassisted, early in the second period, gave the Paladins a 6-1 lead. Dion Lahoda had three goals and two assists for RMC, while defenceman Brent Maurice had two goals and two assists. Pat McDonald, Tyler McTavish, Nick Cregan and Josh Fudge had the other goals for the Paladins. Jesse Pyatt, with two, Thomas Laplante and Michael Nelson scored for Guelph. Nobes said the difference for his team was more effort at getting shots on goal. RMC had 49 shots against Guelph and 42 Friday night against Laurier. "All week at practice we talked about every time we're in over the blue-line, getting the puck at the net, and getting guys driving to the net, stopping in front, looking for rebounds," Nobes said. "A lot of goals were those type of goals. It was good to be rewarded for that. It wasn't like we hadn't had a lot of offensive opportunities ... but we hadn't been rewarded. t was good to finally break the pimple." - Saturday night at Jock Harty Arena, Brian Moore's goal at 2:50 of a five-minute overtime period gave Queen's its first win of the year. Jeff Ovens and Cliff Stark scored the other goals for Queen's, which led 1-0 and 2-1. Matt Grenier's goal at 7:28 of the third period forced overtime. Mark Voakes, late in the first period, also scored for Laurier. Kingston's Ed Van Herpt, in goal for Laurier, and Matt Kenney of Queen's each made 35 saves. |
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