Team NOHA Drops Third Straight

KITCHENER – Graeme Clarke’s three-point performance in Team GTHL Red’s 7-3 win over Team NOHA at the 2017 OHL Gold Cup will best be remembered his second goal of the afternoon.

With GTHL Red ahead 5-2 and on a powerplay, Clarke picked up a pass and set up behind the NOHA net. In a flash, he flipped the puck up onto his stick and reached around the post, lacrosse style.

“I’ve done it a few times this year, it’s a fun one it just makes the game more fun and doing stuff like that is obviously pretty cool, so I like doing it,” Clarke says of his memorable goal.

It was the NOHA that opened the scoring in the first, working low in the GTHL Red zone on the powerplay. Kobe Seguin found a lane and sent the pass to Camaryn Baber to put NOHA ahead 1-0.

“Just a fluky first goal, one of our defences threw it in front of the net and I just tapped it in,” Baber says of his first of two points on the night.

GTHL Red answered back though, just 47 seconds later. With his team set up in the NOHA zone, Clarke used the screen to beat goaltender Joel Rainville for a 1-1 tie, which would hold throughout the rest of the first.

In the second, Kyle Harris and Lucas Rowe put up two more goals for Team GTHL Red for a 3-1 lead going into the third.

Anthony Aguanno and Cole MacKay traded goals for GTHL Red and NOHA early in the third. Ty Jackson added another for GTHL Red for a 5-2 lead, when Clarke buried his second of the night on the lacrosse-style play. Louka Henault and Jacob Peterson-Galema also scored to finish the game at 7-3.

With the win, Team GTHL Red secures first place in Group B and will play the still-to-be determined second seed from Group A, Saturday at 5:15 p.m. Group A will be decided in the final game of Day 2, when Team HEO and Team OMHA White play at 8:15 p.m.

Follow along with all the OHL Gold Cup action on Twitter @OHLGoldCup

Follow along with Team NOHA on Twitter @NOHAHockey.

By: Lee Boyadjian