(TILBURY, ON) – The Tilbury Bluebirds find themselves atop the WOSHL standings with a perfect 4-0-0 record after sweeping two contests over this past weekend. The ‘Birds are two points in front of the defending champion Elora Rocks who have played one fewer game and also sport an undefeated record of 3-0-0.
Saturday night at home Tilbury hosted the Stratford Fighting Irish who had doused the Delhi Flames 16-3 the previous week. The Irish led the hit parade early in the 1st period, hemming the ‘Birds in their own zone with inspired fore checking, however Ryan Crevatin found Mitch Van Teeling behind the Stratford defense for a clear breakaway on goal. Van Teeling made no mistake as he fired a shot from between the circles past Nathan Young. Vyacheslav Chegrintsev, who also assisted on Van Teeling’s goal, wrapped a short-handed effort after being pulled down to put Tilbury up by two with 4:18 left in the opening frame. Finally, Brock Grandbois was chuffed to get his first of the year with just over a minute remaining to stake the home side to a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes. Grandbois’s tally would hold up as the game winner.
Playing in his first game with Tilbury, David Leblanc increased the ‘Birds’ lead to open the 2nd period. With almost 5 minutes gone, Stratford’s Branden Speziale broke the stone wall of Ryan Polidori. The Tilbury keeper would go on to kick out 32 of 34 Irish shots over the course of the game. After the slow start, Tilbury would pile 58 shots against Young and backup tender Zack Weir. The rest of the penalty filled middle stanza saw Tilbury’s Zack Bedard, with his first, and Stratford’s Cameron Stokes, on the power play, trade goals before the buzzer sounded.
Only Chegrintsev would find the twine in the 3rd as the Bluebirds skated away with the 6-2 victory.
There was little time to celebrate the win as Tilbury boarded the bus for Plattsville and a Sunday afternoon tilt against the bottom dwelling Lakers. The Bluebirds bettered their shot output from the previous evening, testing Lane Timmons between the posts for the home team. The shots were even at 12 apiece as Tilbury had another slow start. The land-locked Lakers managed to opening the scoring at the 8:06 mark as Luke Sinclair eluded Polidori, who was making his 4th straight start in goal. This is the first time Tilbury has trailed on the scoreboard this season. It didn’t last long as Nick Tetreault registered his 2nd goal just over a minute later to knot the score.
During the second 20 minutes Tilbury doubled Plattsville’s 10 shots, but it wasn’t until Van Teeling unlocked the vault with 5:16 to play did the red light flash. Chegrintsev then scored another short-handed marker with exactly 60 seconds to play putting Tilbury up 3-1.
Even though Tilbury out-shot the Lakers 28-5 in the 3rd, the only goal of the period didn’t come until the captain, Dylan Denomme, slid an unassisted empty-netter across the line with 26 seconds on the clock to ice the game for the Bluebirds.
Tilbury will remain on the road to play the Strathroy Jets (1-2-0) on 21 October. They return to the Nest the following night to face-off against the visiting Erin Blitz (0-2-0) with the puck dropping at 7:30.
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