Black Hawks win another one

The Houlton-Hodgdon Black Hawks regained their winning form last Saturday as they took a 7-2 decision from the Lawrence Bulldogs at the Millar Civic Center in Houlton.
    The game started with both teams skating hard. The action was up and down the ice with solid physical play the order of the day. The fans didn’t have to wait long to see the first goal, as Lawrence struck with just over three minutes into the game. The lead didn’t last long, as the Black Hawks tied the score just 30 seconds later on a goal by Ian Gervais. The assists went to linemates Parker Sanderson and Dylan Gard.     Less than a minute later, Lawrence went ahead again, as they took the puck from the sideboards and into the slot untouched to take the lead. Ben Ward tied the score with 4:35 left in the period to make it 2-2 going into the second period. Assists went to Logan Holmes and Cody Briggs.
The second period saw the Black Hawks come out flying, as they struck for two goals in the first 45 seconds. This seemed to take the fight out of the visitors as they never regained their composure. Briggs hit the twine with 29 seconds gone and Dylan Gard made it 4-2 just 15 seconds later. Assists on the goals went to Holmes and Gervais.
The Black Hawks hit for three more goals in the second to make the score 7-2 after two periods. Briggs, Ward and Gard all tallied their second goals of the game, with assists going to Ward, Sanderson and defensemen Kam Lincoln and Jordan Brown. Brown picked up a brace of assists in the period. Malik Abouleish finished with eight saves.
The third period saw all the Black Hawks seeing action with Avery Kibler replacing Abouleish in net and everyone on the bench taking their turns on the ice. While no one scored in the period it was an opportunity for the fans to see all the Black Hawks get into the action.
“The team brought up the fact that we didn’t seem to have the stamina we needed against Brewer the week before so we did a lot of conditioning in practice this week,” said Black Hawks coach Joel Trickey. “We also have gone back to our three-line system again. The combination seems to have picked up our skating. We’ve seen the kids refocus themselves after the Brewer game and the prospect of going deep in the playoffs looks pretty good right now. Everyone’s working hard and they are focused. Our goal now is to peak during the playoffs to give us the best chance to dethrone Brewer.”