Wildcats rip apart Hawks

    The Black Hawks threw 28 shots at Wildcat goalie Ethan Hill, who came up with several crowd-pleasing saves including a series of three near the end of the second period that saw Hill go down, lose his stick and still not allow a goal.
“We always come out against Houlton,” Hill said. “They’re our rival and everyone comes out fired up. I just went out and played my game.”
Hill saved another sure goal to open the third period on a hard shot off the left crease by Jordan Gard. The puck appeared to be sailing for the upper right side of the net but Hill got a glove on it for the save.
Opposing goalie Curtis Libby, for his part, made a couple of nice saves but it was Presque Isle’s night to shine.
“I thought our goal tender played much better than we could’ve even asked of him,” said Presque Isle head coach Dr. Carl Flynn. “We were getting shots through their defense to the net and that was the whole game plan, to just shoot as much as we could and test their goal tender because he’s pretty inexperienced … Finally, in the third period, we broke loose and got some goals.”
Behind a 2-0 lead, the Wildcats threw themselves behind their offense in the third quarter and netted two goals within 21 seconds of each other in the middle of the period. With 7:23 remaining, Greg Cyr collected the puck on the right side and sent a long slap shot toward the left corner where it found Ben McPherson for the clean up.
Presque Isle won the face off and sent Houlton/Hodgdon scrambling back on defense. McPherson picked up the puck and centered it for Brandon Daigle, who collected the goal.
“We were just trying to dump and chase it,” Daigle said. “We put a lot of pressure on them and they were giving the puck up.”
Down 4-0, the Black Hawks got one final chance with 2:34 remaining when they got a two-man advantage behind Presque Isle penalties. The Wildcats killed the penalties and added their final tally seven seconds later when Parker Hovey netted a pass from Spencer Deschene.
“When we were short handed we tried to have Greg Cyr and Parker Hovey or both out on the ice,” said Flynn. “We were able to succeed doing that. We spend a half hour every practice practicing penalty killing, and we have three or four kids who do a phenomenal job. They’re fast and put pressure on the other team so they’re not able to set up their power play the way they want, and with that, we can play shorthanded almost as well as we can play even strength right now.”
The Wildcats got their first strike in the second period on the powerplay when Hovey sent a shot in off the right side. The rebound centered in front of the net to Cyr, who collected the goal 22 seconds into the period.
Sean Flanagin added the second goal of the period 11 seconds into another powerplay with 5:45 left. Assists went to Cyr and Daigle.
“Houlton’s always tough,” Hill said. “You have to hand it to them, but I thought we played our game tonight and kept our cool. Defensively it’s a lot of communication.”
Next up for the (record) Wildcats is Hampden in a 1 p.m. game on Thursday at the Forum. They close 2006 on the road against Brewer Saturday at 3 p.m.