Souderton commits 12 penalties in loss against CR North

HATFIELD >> Souderton committed 12 penalties in a 6-1 loss to Council Rock North Friday night at Hatfield Ice.

The Indians penalty kill did a good job — keeping North off the board on all but one power play, including three separate 5-on-3s for more than 100 seconds.

“I think we went into this game with maybe 20 (penalty) minutes total in five or six games,” Souederton coach Matthew Montagna said. “We don’t take a lot of penalties ever. I think (the refs) were trying to keep control of the game. That was their way of doing it. That happens in hockey. What are you going to do? There were some pretty nasty hits on both sides, they were trying to prevent that from happening.

“We did a good job on the penalty kill. This isn’t the stuff we’ve been working on, we’re trying to get these kids’ sea legs together, trying to get these kids organized out there so they can be competitive. They were competitive tonight. We’re always going to give up 30 or 40 shots, we know that. The power plays killed us, though. The silver lining of that is we killed off all those 5-on-3s. We did a good job.”

After a 1-1 first period, the game got away from Souderton in the second. North out-shot Souderton 19-3 in the middle period and scored three goals.

“We were frustrated,” Montagna said. “We were mixing and matching guys. We can’t be mixing and matching like that. We’re just too young to be doing that. These guys don’t know 11 different roles on the ice. When your captain gets taken out in the first period … that hurts. Our older guys were in the box a lot tonight. That hurt us a lot.”

North added two more goals in the third period to get to the 6-1 final score.

Zac Herman scored three goals for North, Daniel Guest 2 and CJ Zemzik one.

Souderton’s only goal came midway through the first period. John Gray knocked home a rebound to tie the score at one.

Indians goalie Jonathan Pritchard stopped 39 of the 45 shots he faced.

North’s Rex Goldberg made 14 stops between the pipes.

“Hats off to North,” Montagna said. “They did a good job. Their goalie did a good job. Everybody is aiming upstairs and that didn’t seem to work.”

CR North 6, Souderton 1
CR North 1 3 2 — 6
Souderton 1 0 0 — 1
Goals: CRN: Zac Herman 3, CJ Zemzik, Daniel Guest 2. S: John Gray.
Assists: CRN: Harrison Treiman, Brandon Simmonds, Cavan Tully 3, Zac Herman 2. S: Tyler Apple.
Saves: CRN: Rex Goldberg 14. S: Jonathan Pritchard 39.