SIHA Round-Up 28th & 29th March 2015

Thank you to Phil Holden for his contribution to FSB, All Credit for this piece goes to him so any queries you can contact Phil on Twitter @PhilSlice

Spartans put in a superb team performance to comfortably beat Sutton Sting 7-1 in their final game of the regular season to clinch the final play-off spot in Dumfries over their opponents who needed a win to overhaul Spartans into 4^th spot. Ollie Barron got Spartans off to a flyer with a goal after 7 seconds to settle the nerves but Sutton equalised through John Ross. It was a close game but some nice individual skill from Shaun Wild outsmarted the Sutton defence to fire Spartans back in front. Spartans gradually wore Sutton down in the second with two more goals, one apiece for Ollie & Will Barron to put Spartans firmly in the driving seat. The wind had clearly been knocked out of Sutton’s sails and when Jonathan Kirk fired in a brace to make it 6-1 it was basically game over. Sutton, who weren’t at their best, tried to fight their way back into the game but they were no match for a well drilled Spartans team who scored again through Nick Manning to put the game beyond the slightest doubt for a well-deserved win with a competent performance to secure 4^th spot, three points ahead of Sutton in 5^th.

Congratulations also go out to Sabres U14’s who were crowned Champions of D2 this weekend despite not having a game this weekend with results elsewhere determining that they couldn’t be topped. A fantastic achievement!

Also in action on Saturday were the Rapiers U16 D1 who thumped Kingston Hull 22-0 which sees them qualify for the National Finals and still in the hunt for top spot too.  Sticking with the U16’s, Greyhounds amazing season in D2 continued with a solid performance to grab a 3-0 road win in Nottingham.

In wasn’t such a good day on Sunday for our Junior teams in action with all of them suffering home defeats in what were crucial games. Both U12’s teams lost out with Lasers losing to title chasing rivals Bradford 8-2 in D1 whilst Swampfrogs were narrowly beaten by Coventry 4-3 in D2. Meanwhile Stormers U14’s suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of title rivals Bradford, just as the Lasers had done but the score in this was 13-4 to Bradford.

Senators certainly had a bad day at the office on Sunday, for more reasons than one when they were beaten 13-2 in Deeside by the Dragons. This was on the back of a 5-3 home win the previous night at Ice Sheffield. Sens had found themselves in front 3-0 at the end of the second but Coventry hit back to be the better team but not quite good enough to overhaul Sens who went onto win the game 5-3 and despite the fightback from Coventry, were the deserved winners on the balance of play for the full 60 minutes.

However on Sunday it was a different story in which Deeside were clearly pumped up for their final game in front of a decent sized crowd. Sens had found themselves 3-0 down at the end of the first in what was a physical encounter and although Deeside had been the better team, there had not been too much wrong with Sens performance, maybe just lacking a bit of zest in front of goal. However they were flat in the second period with a performance that did not mirror that of previous ones or indeed that of Deeside’s who put in a terrific effort to see them deservedly 7-0 in front. Things had got worse for Sens too who had lost the inspirational Josh Gent to a nasty injury, one that was overlooked by the referee who allowed play to continue for Dragons to score whilst Josh was still down and obviously in a lot of pain. Bobby Browne also picked up an injury to force him out of the game and with no back up netminder it was up to Charlie Thompson to step in and he could do very little about the 6 goals he let in. These are by no means excuses, Dragons were in top form and had dominated proceedings but Sens showed some Sheffield steel to hit back to outshoot their opponents but as was the case in the first, it wasn’t quite happening in front of goal with Sens only able to pop two in from a hatful of chances; Sergevs Jegorovs & Andy McEwan the scorers. Although a bad result, hopefully it was just a one off as Sens look forward to play-off hockey next weekend with a trip to Solihull to face Telford Tigers NIHL in the semi-finals on Sunday with a place up for grabs in the final against hosts Solihull Barrons or Widnes Wild.

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