Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Napanee’s offense continues to look in mid-season form as they rolled to an 8-2 victory over the Picton Pirates in pre-season play at the Strathcona Paper Centre on Friday.
Friday’s output gives them 13 goals in their two exhibition matches to date as they prepare for their 33rd PJHL Junior C hockey season.
Napanee’s Christos Chronis opened the scoring 5:32 into the game with a power-play goal with Noah Westwater picking up the assist.
That was the start of five unanswered goals for the Raiders who scored early and often in their second pre-season matchup.
Reid Lambert tallied his first of the exhibition season just over two minutes later to round out the first period scoring.
Napanee continued to pour it on in the second as Jakob DaCosta, Will Potts and Marshall McFarland all scored within a three minute and six second span.
Picton’s Reese Hancock finally snapped Napanee’s scoring streak with a goal 12:33 into the middle frame to get the visitors on the board. Napanee’s John Hearns answered back just less than two minutes later before Liam Philip got one back for Picton with just under three minutes to play in the period in what would go down as the Pirates’ last goal of the game.
Napanee iced the victory with two more in the final 20 minutes. Beckett Palmer-Stephen scored on the power-play at 8:09 and McFarland banked home his second of the game at 9:21, also on the power-play.
Start to finish it was a much more even effort for the Raiders as they limited the Pirates to 30 shots, compared to 55 of their own.
Picton’s goaltending duties were split between Carter page (five goals allowed) and Ryan Aldridge (three goals allowed).
Bailey Maracle, who figures to once again play a major role in net for Napanee, had 28 saves while playing the entire game. He’s coming off a season that saw him go 11-2 with a 2.02 GAA. The Deseronto native is entering his fourth Junior C season with the team, boasting a record of 48-8-3 in 62 career regular season games. He carries a 1.92 career GAA with a .926 save percentage.
Now 1-1 in the pre-season, the Raiders have two more tune-up games remaining, starting with a home date against the North Kawartha Knights of the Orr Division on Friday night at the SPC. Puck drop is 7:30 p.m.
On Sunday they travel to North Kawartha to face the Knights at the North Kawartha Community Centre. Game time is 2:25 p.m.
From there they get set to open their season at home against the Amherstview Jets on Sept. 16. Game time is 7:30 p.m. at the SPC. These two rivals met in last year’s Tod Division finals with the Raiders winning in Game 7 in overtime in a finish that was not without controversy. Minutes before the Raiders scored, the Jets appeared to have scored the game winner only to have the goal waved off as it was ruled the net had come loose. Napanee made good on their second chance as Westwater scored the game winner to end the first-pace Jets’ season.
The two clubs once again figure to be in the conversation for the division lead all season long.