The Houlton-Hodgdon Black Hawks suffered two more losses despite their all-out effort.
The Blackhawks were shut out by the John Bapst Crusaders last Friday night at Sawyer Arena.
“We just couldn’t get the puck in the net even though we had 28 shots on net,” said Black Hawks coach Tony Marino.
John Bapst had 35 shots on goal and capitalized on eight of them.
The Black Hawks had 17 minutes of penalties, which really impacted the score, noted Marino.
“It allowed the Crusaders to set the tone of the game with five goals in the first,” he said. “It was a hard fought game, but the players just couldn’t overcome the odds.”
On Saturday at the John Millar Civic Center, the Black Hawks rebounded to play host to the Waterville Purple Panthers.
The Black Hawks lost the game, 4-1, but the score is not indicative of the skating and pressure put on Waterville’s goalie by the Black Hawks.
“Although we suffered the loss, we played much harder than we did Friday night,” said Marino.
The Black Hawks took a 1-0 lead in the first on an unassisted goal scored by Brandon Malone, as a result of a turnover in Waterville’s zone.
Waterville then tied the game up 32 seconds later with a quick takeover and possession right from the faceoff. The Purple Panthers scored again with 1:18 left in the first after a quick transition play.
After a scoreless second period, Waterville added two more goals in the third period. Lucas Peabody scored a tally for the Black Hawks with 1:20 left in the third period assisted by Gunnar Briggs.
“That was Peabody’s first Black Hawk career goal,” Marino added.
Although the Black Hawks battled hard, pulled the Waterville goalie, and got a few shots off, they were not able to capitalize at the end.
“It was a much better game than Friday night’s game,” said Marino. “We played hard and battled for the puck. We were definitely playing up to our abilities and the score reflected that. We still have a lot of work to do in practices, but I do see improvements each week. We had a mild set back on Friday night, but that’s normal and we recovered well in Saturday’s game. It was a much cleaner performance and they played with much more fluidity.”
