Ty Dilello
The Niverville Nighthawks gave it a more spirited effort than many games of late on Saturday night at the CRRC, but they ultimately lost 4–3 in a shootout to the OCN Blizzard. With the loss, the Nighthawks stay in fourth place in the MJHL’s East Division with a record of 23–19–4.
In one of the team’s best games in the 2024 calendar year to date, the Nighthawks played solidly but just found themselves on the wrong side of the inch when the game ended.
Niverville opened the scoring late in the first period with a tally from Kaycee Coyle. After OCN tied the game early in the second period, Michael Debrito scored his twentieth counter of the season to put the Nighthawks ahead.
In the third period, Carter Spirig scored for Niverville, while OCN had a pair of goals in the final frame, leaving the score tied 3–3 after 60 minutes.
Overtime solved nothing, and it took an eight-round shootout for OCN to pull out the 4–3 victory.
Keegan Gordon stopped 34 shots in the Nighthawks’ goal in the loss.
“I liked the resiliency of staying in the fight and the game tonight,” said head coach Dwight Hirst. “There were some moments where I thought we might regress, and we didn’t. We kept moving forward with a positive attitude.”
The Nighthawks are back in action with a home game at the CRRC on Saturday night against the Virden Oil Capitals. The puck drops at 7:00 p.m.
“We just want to come with the same effort and compete that we did tonight,” said Hirst. “If we give that tomorrow, then I believe we will come out on the positive side of things against Virden.”