Black Hawks may reach playoffs

The Houlton Hodgdon Black Hawks split a pair of games this last week, taking a match from second-place Hampden 3-1 last weekend at Penobscot Ice Arena, but dropping their contest with Orono at the Millar Civic Center on Monday evening, 8-1.
The game in Brewer with Hampden was one of the team’s best efforts off the year as they played hard and focused for the entire game to outshine East B’s second-place team and pick up some valuable Heal Points with the 3-1 victory.
    The game was fast paced from the start and the first period ended in a 1-1 tie as the Black Hawks countered the Broncos’ only goal of the game with a marker off the stick of Brandon Ward with the assists going to linemates Sam Fitzpatrick and Brandon Malone.     Netminder Payton Porter made 12 saves in the period as the back-and-forth action provided plenty of scoring opportunities for both teams.
The second period saw the locals only putting six shots on goal but Lucas Grant fired a hard wrister past the Bronco netminder for what proved to be the winning goal at the 2:33 mark of the period. The assist on the goal went to Gage Hunt. Once again the action was fast and even with the Black Hawks playing excellent defense to keep their opponent off the board.
The third period saw the Black Hawks take more control of the game and hold the Broncos to three shots, while putting seven on the Bronco goalie, including one by Ward at the back of the net with Fitzpatrick setting up the marker.
Against Orono on Monday night, the Black Hawks suffered from a lack of focus and ended up on the short end of the 8-1 score. With the score 2-0, Josh Bragan scored on a nice low wrister from the point, bringing the Black Hawks to within one. The assists went to Fitzpatrick and Ward.
It looked like the team would go into the locker room trailing just 2-1, but Orono scored with just one second left putting the Black Hawks in a hole they couldn’t climb out of. Shots were even in the period at 11 apiece and play was matched. The late goal lifted Orono and took the wind out of the Black Hawks.
The second period saw Orono score two more while the Red Riots’ goalie turned back a couple of excellent scoring opportunities for the Black Hawks. Shots were once again fairly even with Orono holding a 7-6 advantage.
In the third period, Orono tacked on three more goals to make the final 8-1. Porter and Hugh Farrar combined for 26 saves, while the Black Hawks put 25 shots on Orono .
The Hampden game saw a complete game from the team.
“The effort, focus and discipline were all there,” said Black Hawks coach Joel Trickey. “We played well for the entire game and the results showed how well the team competed. If we can learn from this experience and bring that to the rest of the season, we have chance to make the playoffs.
“Once you get in anything can happen,” Trickey added. “Against Orono, we possibly were trying too hard and just were too tense. With a young team such as this, sometimes you try too hard and just aren’t relaxed enough to make the plays you have to make. We’ll address this in practice and hopefully bring the game we had against Hampden to our contest this weekend against Class A Skowhegan. If we do, we can pick up some valuable points toward the playoffs.”