The Sarnia Legionnaires are off to a great start after taking their second win in their first week of action in the Greater Ontario Jr B Hockey league.

After their 6 - 4 home opener win against Leamington on Tuesday the Legionnaires were back in action Thursday in Sarnia and downed the Strathroy Rockets 5 - 3 before 1,096 hockey fans.

"It was a good one for the boys." Head Coach Dan Rose said  "Way more efficient we weren’t scrambly like the way were the first period the first game."
 

Jay Clarke put the Legionnaires on the board at 2:14 into the first period with a shot glove side after a series of passes from Nathan Mater and Riley Roberts.

Strathroy evened the score on a power play at 15:06 with Brett Dalton scoring for the Rockets.  Sarnia's power play answered back at 16:44 to regain the lead when Cody Trowell found himself parked in front and banged it in on a pass received by Davis Boyer and Kyler Keating.  First period ended with Sarnia leading 2 - 1.

 

 

In the second period back to back power play goals gave the Legionnaires a 4 - 1 lead.  At 11:33 Jay Clarke scored his second of the night on a shot that lobbed over the goalie.  Mater from Tyler Prong earned the assist.

 

The second power play goal of the period was scored by Ryan Trottier from Davis Boyer at 13:54.  Forty eight seconds later Mark MacAulay of Strathroy scored their second goal and the period ended with Sarnia leading by a score of 4 - 2.

 

Third period action found Strathroy battling back and at 14:04 Stuart King scored to narrow the gap to one but just under a minute later Jordan Forgarty slapped in his first goal of the season that gave Sarnia the comfortable lead which the Legionnaires held on to take the win.

Riley Babkirk assisted on the final goal.

 

 

"We have four good lines right now so you are going to see on different nights different guys contributing but obviously all those guys can play and it shows." Rose said.

 

Sarnia had control of the game outshooting the Rockets 45 - 32. 

 

Netminder Hunter Johnson earned his second win making 29 saves.  Tynan Lauziere took the loss made 40 saves. 

 

 

"Hunter played really well in the third period. We weren't’ worried too much about line match up as they were getting out their top line and we were rolling four so we can watch our match ups. At this time of year but we like to get everyone into the game and they'll all become better, at times there was a mismatch out there and Hunter bailed us out."

 

Sarnia scored three power play goals on nine opportunities.  "These guys are determined to win this year." Rose said  "It’s a discipline group that were looking for, if you want to compete hard you want to stay out of the box as much as possible and I think they are determined to do that."

 

Strathroy scored once on six opportunities.

 

 "The boys were working hard they are not quite as strong as Leamington penalty kill but you know for us we did a lot of good things out there. It’s nice to see the boys respond to some of the things we talked about before the game."

 

 

Making his Jr. B debut in this game was #22 Alec DeKoning from the Lambton AAA Midget team.  "He’s a sixteen year old and he’s going to help us out this year. He had a great game for his first Jr. B game he shows that he’s almost ready to play in this league."

 

 Jay Clarke earned the first star of the night, Nathan Mater second and Davis Boyer third.
 

"It was a good one for the boys." Jay Clarke said after the game "We feel confident in the room so I think it’s going to be a good season we are off to a good start." 

 

The Legionnaires are now 2 - 0 for the season and are back in action Thursday September 18th when they host the London Nationals at 7:10pm.