The Kitchener Jr Rangers MD Red team had their biggest test of the season against the rival Blue team and came up with a 3 to 2-win Friday night.
The Rangers stormed out to a convincing 3 to 0 lead but seemed to lose intensity late and took a few penalties to make their lives harder than it needed. Despite this, the Rangers moved into sole possession of first in the standings and remain the team seeded team in Ontario.
Logan Duke opened the scoring a beautiful bar down goal from the captain Jacob Reid-Brant. Matt Gallant hammered a rocket from the point from Kodi Blackshaw and Connor Coughlin on the power play. Coughlin then made no mistakes in slot from Quinten Earle.
Owen Neomytka stole the goalie show with some great saves all game. Neomytka made several nice kick saves and calmed play whenever the Blue team seemed to get a scoring opportunity.
The Rangers showed off their team’s speed with guys like Jake Fisher and Caleb Cumming hunting down loose pucks. Denver Heiman and Evan Peori were masters on the PK as well. The Rangers missed Stephen Peppas up front and that made things a little harder all around.
However, the team’s defenders made up for any fatigue the forwards might have had in the game. Chad Morris, Noah Park, Toby Pryce and Josh McDonald controlled the play in the zone and made things nice and simple.
Overall the Rangers were pleased with the result but realize they have to do a better job of ignoring other teams’ taunts and chirps and make sure they play a hard clean game as the season schedule toughens up.
Go Rangers!