Booth’s shutout carries Muskies to second win

Goalie Jamie Booth and his teammates were not fazed by their 20-hour bus ride here from Fort Frances as they won their first two pool games yesterday at the all-Ontario ‘A/AA’ hockey championship.
After opening with a 9-1 win over 16th-ranked Sacred Heart (Stittsville), the top-ranked Muskies skated to hard-fought 6-0 victory over the eighth-ranked Lakeshore Gators (Port Colborne) last night at Mainway Arena.
For Booth, a 19-year-old OAC student and three-year veteran of the Muskies, it was his sixth shutout of the season, including playoffs. Next year, he plans to attend the University of Manitoba, and if everything works out, he may try out for the Bisons’ hockey team.
“They’re [Lakeshore] not a bad team. They would be within the top two or three teams in our league,” Booth noted after last night’s win. “We just out-played them today and by the end of the third period, they had nothing left.”
With Booth stonewalling the Gators between the pipes, winger Adam McTavish led the offence with a pair of goals and setting up two others while David Lloyd, Kevin Webb, and Jeff Savage collected a goal and assist each.
For Savage, it was his fourth goal in just two games at OFSAA.
Dallas Mosbeck had the other goal for the Muskies against Lakeshore.
The most dazzling play of the night was McTavish’s second goal of the game on a power-play with five seconds to go in the second period.
Defenceman Lorne Koski fed a pass through centre to McTavish on a transition play and the speedy winger double-clutched, raced in on Lakeshore goalie James Tappan, and ripped the shot past his flailing opponent.
Against the Sacred Heart Huskies earlier yesterday, Savage scored three times, including a shorthanded goal, as the Muskies skated away with a 9-1 win.
But the was not as one-side as it appeared on the scoreboard as the black-and-gold led just 3-1 after two periods before erupting for six unanswered goals in the final stanza.
“It was a tough game for us the first couple of periods,” admitted Muskie head coach Glen Edwards. “We forechecked very, very, well, which was what we wanted to do going into the game.
“We got a lot of quality chances on goal,” he added. “The big problem was that we just didn’t put the puck into the net and complete our chances in the first two periods.
“We ran into penalty trouble in the second period, and started to get a bit tired up front. Up until the start of the third, it was still anybody’s hockey game.
“At that point, we changed our lineup and went with four lines. We pulled some guys up from the defence and I think that was when we finally succeeded in doing what we wanted to do,” continued Edwards.
“I think that’s when we finally wore them down.”
Edwards said he got a good effort from the whole team.
“Jeff Savage had three goals, which was nice to see, and [Adam] McTavish continued to be a force for us on the wing,” he remarked.
“Even though the final score was 9-1, our goaltender Blake Carlson played solidly . . . when we broke down, he was there to bail us out,” Edwards noted.
Kevin Webb, a grade 12 student and the club’s top sniper during the NorWOSSA season with 75 goals, was held to just a goal and an assist by Sacred Heart.
The reason for that, Edwards said, was because McTavish had been moved off the wing. Consequently, Webb has not been putting the puck in the net as often as he did during most of the season.
But Edwards feels the move has given the team more scoring balance.
“Webb, however, has paid the price a little bit but he is still very good with the puck,” he stressed. “He is very quick and is slippery out there; if he breaks away [with the puck], it’s going to go in the net.”
In addition to Savage’s three goals, including an unassisted power-play marker in the third, James Asplund connected for two goals and two assists with Steve Niskala adding a goal and setting up three others.
Ross Anderson scored once and set up a second goal while Cole Hayward rounded out the Muskies’ scoring.
Mike Thompson scored Sacred Heart’s lone goal on a backhand shot during a first-period power-play, with Conor Higgins and Sean Greenwood assisting.
The Muskies wrapped up pool play late this morning (Wednesday) against ninth-ranked Aldershot (Burlington). A victory would put them into the quarter-finals tonight.