By Carson Carrell
The Nordonia Knights Ice Hockey team hosted and took part in their annual Thanksgiving Tournament last weekend. The team ended up playing three teams in total throughout the tournament and gained one win and two losses.
The first tournament game was against the Parma Redmen. The Knights fell to the Redmen 9-0 and were not able to put up any goals against the upper division team. Goaltender Tommy Lippincott was busy in net making 25 saves.
The second tournament matchup was against the Aurora Greenmen, The Knights took home another loss; however, Nordonia was able to put up one goal against Aurora keeping them from being shut out. Lippincott had another solid performance with 43 saves. It is important to note that these losses are against teams in the White North Division. Nordonia is in the Blue South Division. So considering the caliber of competition, the Knights skating was remarkable. Additionally, the wins and losses in this tournament do not count toward the season standings and the team is still looking good for their goal of winning the Baron Cup this year.
Nordonia’s final game was against the Westlake Demons. The Knights ended up winning 6-4 against this upper division team. Nordonia was eager to beat Westlake because they were in the same division last year and the Knights were not able to put up a single win against them. Nordonia showed they came ready to play by putting up a goal in the first few seconds of the game. The score went back and forth throughout the game but the momentum changed when Brian Sebastian scored a short-handed goal (5 players vs 3) to tie up the game. Two additional goals followed, one by each of the Carrell brothers, for the win.
Parma ended up winning the championship against Aurora in the final game. The final score of the game was 7-1.
Coach Cinalli’s believes that playing teams that are higher caliber will help increase the momentum of their actual league games and will make them better players and a stronger team overall. Cinalli knows it will help the players use what they have learned in practice and test it out on teams that tend to be a higher skill level.
The team had a chance to look at their upcoming competition at the tournament which is Notre Dame Cathedral Latin and they liked what they saw. Nordonia is hoping to take another win this Saturday as they play a league game against NDCL and move one step closer to their ultimate goal. Go Knights!
We captured a bit of the Knights warming up before the Parma match. See below:
