73’s halt Blades two-game winning streak

Last weekend the Blenheim Blades picked up their 12th and
13th wins of their 32-game Provincial Junior Hockey League
Stobbs Division season.
Thursday night they hosted the Essex 73’s before the smallest
home crowd in a long time, and saw their modest winning
streak end at two as they fell 5-2 to the second-place 73’s.
The loss leaves the Blades in sixth-place with 26 points,
thanks to a 13 and 15 win/loss record, one point in back of the
fifth-place Wheatley Sharks.
However, thanks to the eighth-place Dresden Kings 5-3 victory
over the seventh-place Petrolia Flyers Thursday, the Blades
have clinched at least a sixth-place finish with four games to
play.
Next action for the Blades will be Sunday at 7 p.m. when they
host the first-place Lakeshore Canadiens at the Blenheim
Memorial Arena.
Neither team scored a goal in the first period as the Blades
outshot Essex 11-8, however the 73’s tallied three times in the
middle 20 minutes to the Blades once, with the 73’s adding two
more tallies in the third period to the Blades one.
Tyler Ewald scored his 12th of the season in the second
period for Blenheim, with assists going to Tate Bowden and
Alex Edwards, with Bowden getting his 18th with two and a half
minutes to play in the third to cut the Essex lead to 4-2.

Evan Wells and Seth Henderson set up the powerplay tally.
Riley Pawluk scored twice for Essex with singles going to
Connor Dembinski, Everett Parent and Jake Fields.
BLADES BITS: Blenheim outshot Essex 37-32…Not dressed for
the Blades were Evan Minnie, Jared Delaey, Ben Barnard and
Brett Wegrzyn…Attendance was 188…The ice time sponsors
were Rumble Water Wells and Mike Torrie Freedom 55.