Friday Night Recap

This is amazing. I've been getting emails, texts messages and phone calls with updates from West Michigan teams around the state. So far, I have received dispatches from games in Howell, Cranbrook and the Soo, as well as some closer to home.

Rockford 3 Royal Oak 1
Rockford gets two goals in the third period to win. The Rams outshot Royal Oak 40-10 for the game. Jake Chaffee gets the Rams on the board first with a goal early in the 1st that was assisted by Mason McGillicuddy. Senior Captain Andrew Beeg scores the game winner in the 3rd assisted by Tyler Hall. Adam Hoard give the Rams a 2 goal cushion with an assist from Beeg and Hall. Christian Van Portfliet gets his first varsity win between the pipes for Rockford.

Big Rapids 4 Kingsford 3
On the strength of 30 shots in the game and 2 goals each by Mike Hickson and Bill Clark and 4 assists by Tom Hancock, the Cardinal Hockey team defeated Kingsford in the first game of the Soo Tourney. With the win, BR now 2 & 4 overall, will play Soo St. Marie in the Championship game on Saturday afternoon at 5:30pm. It was a well fought contest throughout the game, Big Rapids carried a 1-0 lead thru the first on a rebound goal by Clark. In the second, the Cardinals struggled to find their legs and lost some momentom but fought hard and held onto a 3-2 lead at the period break on two goals by Hickson, with an assist going to Jordan Defever on one of those goals. At the start of the 3rd period Kingsford came out quickly and scored on a wrap around goal to tie the game 3 to 3. The third period was dominated by the whisle, as Kingsford took 7 penalties to BR's 3 penalties and niether team could capitalize until Clark got the game winner on assists from Mike Hickson and Tom Hancock on a 5 on 3 powerplay. Eric Saum was in the net for Big Rapids and made 17 saves for the Cardinals.

Birmingham Brother Rice 6 East Kentwood 2
Rough game. It started out EK was short for 8 minutes in the 1st, and Brother Rice capitalized on it by scoring four PP goals to lead 4-0 after one. Falcons tied the second period 1-1 and tied the third period 1-1 but the damage was already done.

Howell 10 East Grand Rapids 3
Ran into the East team at Patterson, back from their game in Howell and scouting tomorrow night's opponent, Forest Hills Central. As for tonight, one of the players was pretty succinct: "It was ugly."

Thanks to all my "correspondents" and keep those updates coming!

Friday's other games:
Saginaw Heritage 2 Cadillac 0
Gaylord vs. Traverse City West 5 Gaylord 4
Saulte St. Marie 5 Grandville 0
Jenison 6 Northview 4
Reeths Puffer 4 Mattawan 1
South Christian 4 GR Christian 3
Waterford 4 Kenowa Hills 1
Cranbrook 4 Portage Central 1
Kalamazoo Blades vs. Grosse Pointe Univ. Liggett (7 p.m. @ Wings)