Blackhawk Cougars Hockey Game recap for 2/13/14

By: Bruce Markey
Sunday, February 16, 2014 | 10:00 AM

The Blackhawk Cougars sitting in 4th place and an outside shot at the third seed in the Open Class PIHL playoffs simply laid an egg in a 7-0 nothing loss to the Harbor Creek Huskies. The Huskies have the first seed wrapped up for the playoffs which start Sunday February 23rd.

It was all Huskies all night as they came on strong right from the first face off. They had played the night before so it came as somewhat of a surprise. Goals by Zach Morris and Nick Rocco in the first period gave them a 2-0 lead after the first 17:00 minute period. they out shot the Cougars 17-3  as well.

In the second period things stayed the same as the Huskies kept coming on offense. They had 19 shots to the Cougars 5, and received goals from Rocco, Tyler Carr, and a 2nd by Rocco as he had the hat trick, and Jamie Collins to take a 6-0 lead into the intermission.

The Cougars played better in the third period mustering some offense and getting 8 shots to match the Huskies shot total for the period. Overall they were out shot 44-17 on the game. The Huskies scored their 7th goal late in the game as Ryan Markiewicz got the final tally.

After the game, all of the Cougar fans lamented that this was the worst game that the boys had played in years. They simply didn’t have it against the Open class’s top team.They had beaten Harborcreek on the road earlier in the year and were looking forward to gaining a higher seed for the upcoming playoffs.

On a good note for the Cougars,goaltender Cory Steinle made 37  saves. To be honest, without Steinle this game would have been a whole lot worse. He made dozens of saves from point blank range as the Huskies had so many opportunities.

Harborcreek  improves to 18-1 and looks forward to the first seed  and a likely first round match up with Wheeling Park. Blackhawk falls to 12-7 and has a huge game on Wednesday February 19th against Mcdowell. A game that can be heard on the MSA Sports Network. This game will decide 4th and 5th place. They each have won at the other teams barn this year and will face each other in the playoffs in the first round. At stake is the 2 hour trip to Erie for the Cougars. A loss and they travel. A win and its a home game. Considering they are 4-5 at home and  8-2 on the road, maybe a road game is what they need.

Keep tuned in to MSA Sports as we will have the final regular season game and all Cougar playoff games live and Archived on msasports.net.

Tags: Blackhawk, Harbor Creek