The Building Craftsmen (Dumfries) Ltd. Solway Sharks face a make of break weekend in their efforts to win a third successive Moralee Conference title when they host Blackburn Hawks on Saturday before travelling to the Billingham Stars on Sunday. The Hawks currently sit undefeated at the top of the league table with seven wins and a draw, seven points ahead of the Sharks, furthermore they have won the two previous meetings between the sides this season. Games against Blackburn are always tense, hard-fought encounters and this match will certainly be no different. To have any realistic hope of retaining their title the Sharks must win on Saturday and beat the Hawks again on the road in February. Sunday doesn’t get much easier as Solway travel to second placed Billingham Stars but they will be heartened to know that two victories this weekend would see them jump to second place in the league table. Dumfries hockey fans can watch a tremendous double header at Dumfries Ice Bowl on Saturday as the Solway Sharks Ladies play Nottingham Vipers at 3:45pm before the Sharks V’s Hawks game which begins at 7pm.
Last Saturday the Solway Sharks, sponsored by Building Craftsmen (Dumfries) Ltd, welcomed third placed Whitley Warriors to the Shark Tank and produced what was probably their best performance of the season so far to win by five goals to two despite a second period scare.
Everything looked rosy for Solway when after just ninety seconds Struan Tonnar collected a Jens Engelen pass to the left of the Whitley goal and drifted inside before despatching a perfect wrist shot into the goal. The Warriors regrouped after the re-start and for a while play was fairly even with both sides looking for an opening in their opponents defence. With seven and a half minutes on the clock a Solway move up the left wing looked to have floundered until the puck found its way to Marc Fowley in the opposite face-off circle. Aware of those around him Fowley delivered a delightful back-handed pass, weighted perfectly to find Richard Bentham unmarked in the slot and the big power forward made no mistake as he put his side ahead two-nil.
Whitley tried to fight their way back into the game but found the Solway defence solid and when they did break through they found they faced another problem. With regular netminder Russell unavailable through work commitments and his deputies unavailable for a variety of reasons the Sharks had called on the emergency services of Kirkcaldy Kestrels netminder Craig Douglas and he produced a number of cracking saves on his debut. With two minutes remaining in the period the home side almost made it three-nil when Iain Bowie set up Struan Tonnar but Whitley netminder Richard Lawson showed that the was in equally good form as he blocked the first shot before smothering Tonnars’ second effort on the rebound.
The visitors returned to the ice for the second period in a far more determined frame of mind and took just two and a half minutes to show that they meant business. Callum Watson battled hard to win possession behind the Sharks goal before passing out to the left face-off circle where it was met by the stick of Ben Thomas Richards and the puck flew into the Sharks goal. Whitley won possession from the restart and Alex Lawson moved up the left before he sent Richards behind the Solway goal to pass back out to the unmarked Martin Crammond who levelled the scores from three yards out. This all took just ten seconds.
Just before the mid-way point in the match the home side were on a powerplay when disaster almost struck. A breakaway saw Douglas rush from his goal to clear the danger but the puck was charged down by Daniel Good and the Sharks stopper had to move sharply to dive and cover the Whitley captains’ goal-bound effort. This seemed to stir something in the Solway psyche as three minutes later they re-took the lead when Duncan Speirs prodded home a loose puck in a goalmouth scramble involving Stevie Adams and Josh Hay. The Sharks continued to press and soon extended their lead in a somewhat bizarre manner. Josh Hay pounced on a loose puck in the Whitley goalmouth and looked set to shoot when he was clattered from behind by a Warriors defender before the puck rebounded into the net off another defenders skate and Solways’ two goal advantage was restored.
In the final period the visitors tried everything they knew to fight their way back into the game and in the forty-fifth minute Callum Watson was unlucky to see netminder Douglas make a good pad save from his on target effort. However, the
Sharks defence was looking strong and for the most part the home side controlled much of the play with Josh Hay and Richard Bentham both forcing netminder Lawson into making good saves.
With four minutes remaining Solway struck for the fifth time to extinguish any remaining Whitley hopes. A Marc Fowley shot was blocked back out to Stevie Moore in the slot and on another day he may have tried his luck himself, but on this occasion he opted to pass to Frazer Goldie who fired home from a narrow angle to the right of the Warriors goal. For the last three minute the Warriors pulled their netminder in favour of a sixth skater in a desperate attempt to save the match but Sharks rearguard remained solid and the clock ran down to zero without further incident.
Scoring statistics for the Sharks were as follows: Richard Bentham one goal and one assist, Frazer Goldie, Struan Tonnar, Duncan Speirs and Josh Hay all 1+0, Marc Fowley 0+2, Stevie Adams, Jens Engelen and Stevie Moore all 0+1. Craig Douglas in the Sharks goal saved thirty-six of the thirty-eight shots that he faced (save percentage 94.74%). The PET Processors Man of the Match Awards were presented to Alex Lawson for the visitors and to Richard Bentham for the Sharks.
