Nov 17, 2019 | Sportsgate | 355 views
Top Spot with Weekend Wins
SPORTSGATE HOCKEY: November 17, 2019:The Kingston JR's, last year’s PWHL pennant winners, made their way back into the top spot with two wins in as many days this past weekend.
The JR's blanked the Waterloo K-W Rangers 5-0 at the Invista Centre on Sunday, one day after downing the home-ice Whitby Jr. Wolves 4-1, to climb into a first-place tie with the Etobicoke Jr. Dolphins. Kingston is ranked first, however, as it has more wins (11) than Etobicoke (10) en route to its 24 points. The Ice Wolves are 11-2-1-1 while Etobicoke is 10-1-4-0. Fuelling the Ice Wolves’ rise for the most part has been a pretty potent offence, with its 61 goals converting into a league tops 4.07 per game. The next best goal-scoring team is the fifth-place Toronto Aeros, at 3.33. Leading the offence on Sunday were forwards Kiara Zanon and Rebecca Thompson. League-leading scorer Zanon scored twice and added a pair of assists while Thompson picked up a goal and two assists.Zanon, with 38 points (18G, 20A) has a 14-point lead on Brianna Brooks of the Durham West Lightning (12G, 12A) in the scoring race. The Ice Wolves boast three other players among the top 10 scorers — Tatum White (fourth, 20), Megan Breen (eighth, 17) and Thompson (10th, 15). Alexa Pongo and Breen scored the team’s other goals on Sunday while goaltender Amelia Van Vliet stopped all 17 shots she faced for her first shutout of the season. She recorded three shutouts last season with Toronto. On Saturday in Whitby, all of the game’s scoring came in the third period, with White starting the offensive output 41 seconds into the final frame. She added two more goals, including an empty-net goal with 32 seconds left to complete the scoring in the 4-1 win. White’s second goal gave Kingston a 2-0 lead before Whitby’s Jordan Dean narrowed the margin to 2-1 with 4:34 remaining in the third. Zanon followed two minutes later to put the game away. Goaltender Maggie Emerson made 21 saves in her sixth victory in eight starts. She has surrendered either one goal (twice) or no goals (three times) in five of those games.