Sylvania is on fire at Nationals. In round one the Leafs took the ice in kelly green sweaters with white trim. Looking very much like Cardigan or Dartmouth (the Big Green) . They went on to play big, beating defending champ Hatfield Ice Dogs. The win came in the OT stanza, where the 2-1 score did not reflect the offensive intensity of the game. Hatfield's defense blocked plenty of shots out in front of their goaltender making Sylvania's fwd work hard to get deep inside the house. Both Sylvania goals came from directly around the dirty crease area. Hatfields shots were just coming from every where, and their goal was one of those "thats why you shoot the puck on net goals". Rebounding off the cross bar to Gay's back, to the cross bar, to hit gays back and rebound in.
The real story here was tender Nate Gay. 50 recorded shots, my mental ticker had it about 56. Every one was on the mid line of gay. The big squared up butterfly goalie turned away shot after shot in this high speed North South game. To this point in the tourney Gay has now turned away faced a recored 65 shots, and allowed but one goal, playing 106 min witha .987 save percent. Save is doing his in back stopping his team, as he is always does.
Reid Mankowski is leading the leafs in scoring, after his hat trick yesterday. Followed by Josh Cline, Andy Martin, Matt Opblinger and Reid Kersey all with 2pts each. Scoring and points are very evenly distributed on this Mankowski lead team, which is a testimony to selfless style of play.
Sylvania is about to face off with Nationals host team Lansing and I leave you know for that game.
