PORT HAWKESBURY: It was a split weekend for the Strait Pirates.
On Friday night, the Pirates fell 4-3 to the Cumberland County Blues in Port Hawkesbury. The Pirates scored first from the stick of Gregor Yoell but the Blues rattled off three straight before Matthew Raike and Brendan Kenneth Lanning could tie things up. The Blues added another goal with less than five minutes to play and held on for the win.
Head coach Taylor Lambke said the team had a poor game all around and he took responsibility for that effort.
“I don’t think I coached a very good game, I don’t think I had the boys prepared the right way and I don’t think they played the right way,” he said. “We learned a tough lesson to not take teams too lightly in this league. I knew going in they were going to work hard and they were going to compete.”
On Sunday night, the Pirates had a better result, earning a 5-3 win over the Pictou County Scotians.
Bryce Reynolds scored the only goal in the first with Jacob Keagan and Olan Spears making sure the Pirates held a 3-1 lead coming into the third period. In the third, Raike and Keagan scored as the teams traded goals and the Pirates came out with the win.
“It was probably our best game that we played in the last four or five,” he said. “We played a complete 60 minutes. We worked really hard, we had a lot of determination in our game and a lot of good structure.”
The Pirates are taking on Pictou at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre on Friday before hitting the road to Antigonish to take on the Bulldogs. Lambke said he expects tough games from the division rivals, noting they are two points behind the Bulldogs and sit one spot ahead of the Scotians.
“We dropped the first one to Antigonish so we’ve got to go up into their barn and try to even up the season series,” the coach added.