After a strong performance in three straight games late in October, and with a week to prepare, the Wellesley Apple Jacks were looking forward to a matchup against the Burford Bulldogs last Saturday night at home.
Unfortunately, the team failed to display their trademark work ethic and dropped a 5-2 decision to the visitors.
“It was really disheartening to see the lack of cohesion, the lack of effort that we had in that game from top to bottom,” said head coach Kevin Fitzpatrick.
The Bulldogs came into the matchup with only three wins on the season, yet looked very much like the more dominant team throughout the match.
The first period featured a lot of run-and-gun offence as both teams traded chances early and often. Burford had the best chance early when Tommy Smith put one past goaltender Josh Heer but couldn’t beat the iron with 10:56 remaining.
The Bulldogs would eventually make good, however, and Brandon Zehr scored the first of the game at 18:02. After Wellesley iced the puck, Burford’s Wes MacDonald won the race for the puck to the right of Heer and fired a quick pass to Zehr, who was waiting just outside of the
blue paint and chipped it past Heer.
The Bulldogs held a 15-7 shot advantage after the first.
The Jacks got off to a slow start in the second as well, and Burford extended their lead to 2-0 just 12 seconds in on a shorthanded goal.
Trailing by two, the Jacks finally developed some urgency and the game began to shift in their favour.
Just before the 13 minute mark of the second the Jacks had their best chance of the game when Wellesley’s leading scorer, Connor McLeod, was robbed in front of the net by the glove of Justin Garner.
Then with 3:14 left in the second, the Jacks Chris Bauman fought with Burford’s Michael
Tomlinson, and the tussle seemed to energize his team and the home crowd as Tomlinson was beaten handily and had to leave the ice for stitches.
In the third, the Jacks scored a pair of powerplay goals before the midway point of the period to knot the game up at two. Geoff Parr scored on a hard slapshot from the point at 4:59 with assists going to Rob Hinschberger and McLeod, and Hinschberger tied the game at 9:01 on a slick pass from defenceman James Mildon after he had snuck in behind the penalty killing defenceman.
The Jacks surrendered another goal at 14:17, and the Bulldogs iced the game with a pair of emptynet goals to seal the 5-2 win.
The coach said the team got caught looking at Burford as a weaker team, and was burned because of it. Wellesley entered the game with a seven point cushion over the Bulldogs, but have now lost five of their last six and watched their record fall to 6-5-0.
“Quite frankly, I think we were looking down at the standings and we very quickly will find ourselves looking up at the people above us if we put that collective effort in that we did Saturday.”
The Jacks get right back at it tonight (Saturday) against Delhi (7-3-0) at home starting at 7:30 p.m., looking to avenge their 4-2 defeat to the Travellers back on Oct. 21.
