Sarnia Sting at Kingston Frontenac's
November 15, 2009

KINGSTON – The Sarnia Sting dug them another first period hole they just couldn’t climb out of Sunday afternoon.
But at least it was not for a lack of trying.

The Sting fell behind 3-0 before the game was 10 minutes old and eventually lost 4-3 to the Kingston Frontenac's before 2,762 fans at the K-Rock Centre.

Sarnia went zero-for-three on their Eastern Ontario road trip on the weekend to fall two games under the .500 mark at 10-12-1-0 in the Ontario Hockey League.

“At least we saw some positives today,” said Sting head coach Dave MacQueen. “The way we’ve been struggling of late it could have been pretty easy to roll over when it was 2-0 after one minute and 3-0 a little later. In general we played hard.”
MacQueen added, “it’s going to be baby steps for us to improve. Today I liked the way we kept battling. We had our chances, but at time we got too fancy instead of shooting the puck. Hopefully it’s something to build on for next weekend.”
One of those positives was his team’s forecheck, “We’ve been preaching of late about getting pucks deep behind their defence and establishing a forecheck. We did that today. It’s something we haven’t been doing in recent games.”
MacQueen says he’s concerned about his team’s start to games.

“It’s preparation. It’s going out at the start and doing the little things right instead of getting back on our heels. We knew Kingston would come out hard, but two bad shifts and they have two goals.”

The Sting got off to another rough start as Kingston scored two goals in the opening minute of play.
The game was only 14 seconds old when Steven Broek banged his own rebound past Sting goalie Adam Courchaine. Kaine Geldart increased the lead to 2-0 at the 52-second mark when he knocked in a loose puck.

Brian Lashoff gave Kingston what appeared to be a commanding 3-0 lead at 9:27 when he drilled a low slapshot from the left point.

For one of the few times this season the Sting had six defencemen dressed as Daniel Broussard was back after serving a five-game suspension.

But that lasted only until the 10:45 mark when Brent Sullivan of the Sting was involved in a fight after another fight had already started. Sullivan received a game misconduct for being the second fight on the same stoppage. He also gets an automatic two-game suspension.

The Sting got back in the game two minutes later with a pair of goals a minute apart. Kale Kerbashian scored his seventh of the year on a low backhand while Miroslav Preisinger notched his sixth of the year converting a passout from Nathan Chiarlitti. Chiarlitti and Brett Ritchie assisted on both Sting goals.

After a scoreless second period, Kingston scored what turned out to be the winning goal 50 seconds into period three when Nathan Moon’s attempted centering pass went off Courchaine and into the net.

Sarnia didn’t generate much offence for most of the third period, but cut the lead to 4-3 with two minutes remaining on a power play when Brett Appio scored his first goal of the year deflecting home a point shot from Jordan Hill.

Chiarlitti also assisted on the play for this third assist of the game and first time in his OHL career he had three points in one game. He was named the game’s third star.

“Getting three points is not too good because we didn’t get a win,” said the second-year defenceman. “It would have felt a lot better if we had got two points. It’s frustrating. We came out flat again today and that’s been our problem of late. But we battled hard after that.”

So how does the Sting get out of this current slump?

“We all need to take a step back and look at ourselves in the mirror,” said Chiarlitti. “We all have something we can bring to the table. If we all do our jobs we’ll be okay.”

Kingston finished with a 38-34 edge in shots on goal with Tyler Beskorowany the winning goalie. Sarnia was one-for-four on the power play and Kingston zero-for-three.

The Sting returns home this weekend for a pair of games at the RBC Centre. They host the defending Memorial Cup champion Windsor Spitfires Friday night and the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds Saturday night. Both games begin at 7:35 p.m.

- Kingston head coach and former NHLer, Doug Gilmour jumped on a plane immediately after the game to be a last-minute judge in Toronto on CBCs Battle of the Blades.
- Sarnia again played one player under the limit. Forward J.C. Campagna was sick while Craig Hottot is out indefinitely with a broken jaw.
- The Sting attended the New York Rangers- Ottawa Senators game Saturday afternoon in Ottawa compliments of Adam Courchaine’s father who works for the Senators. The team sat in a suite.
- Sarnia has lost six of their last seven games. Their road record is now 5-8-0-0.