Six games remain in the regular season and already this North York Rangers team has improved upon last year’s final point tally.
Coach Brent Hughes’ troops earned the mark with a hard-fought, come-from-behind point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Southwest Conference’s No. 1 seed Georgetown Raiders Sunday.
The Rangers sit in fifth place in the Conference at weekend’s end, behind the No. 4 Burlington Cougars due to the regulation-wins tiebreaker.
Georgetown broke out to a quick 2-0 lead after Josh Dickinson jammed the puck past North York starter Gianluca Baggetta on a nice power move from below the goal line, and a long Arron MacDonald wrister evaded the 20-year old goaltender three minutes later.
It took till the last minute of the second period for Teddy Hunt to get the home side on the comeback trail. The veteran skillfully pulled the puck off the half-wall, and whipped a wicked wrist shot through Georgetown net minder Andrew Masters at 19:13 of the middle frame.
Michael Morgan temporarily brought North York square off a nice Chris Sekelyk feed at the 3:39-mark of the third period, but Daniel Hardie capitalized on a two-on-one from a Ranger turnover under six minutes later to put the Raiders back up.
Louis Kereakou then showed North York’s resiliance with under two-and-a-half minutes remaining in regulation, poking the puck past Masters on a shorthanded rush to send the contest to overtime.
Jordan Crocker’s slap shot dribbled through Rangers’ relief goaltender Jeremie Lintner 1:10 into the second overtime.
North York fell to 2-6 in overtime on the season, while Georgetown improved to 4-1.
Baggetta and Lintner split 29 saves and Masters, one of the league’s top goaltenders statistically, made 32 stops.
The Rangers will now rest up and look to get revenge on the Raiders on Saturday, as they travel to Georgetown for the second leg of the home-and-home at Alcott Arena.
