Lee Valley Lions

Solent & Gosport Sharks

Goals

Penalties

Lee Valley Lions

Solent & Gosport Sharks

Additional Comments:

Gosport had suffered a heavy 15-1 defeat to Peterborough Islanders the night before whilst the Lions had drawn against Peterborough earlier in the season. On arriving at the pint-sized Gosport rink expectations of a Lee Valley win were relatively optimistic. However, Gosport were just one place below the Lions in the league table and they had a point to prove.

It only took 5 minutes for the Sharks to put their first goal past Stefan Nubert. Scored by James Bennett and with two assists the goal came on the powerplay as Andrzej Maslak sat out the first of his evening’s penalties.

After being sidelined for boarding Maslak was due to return to the sin bin for slashing when Gosport’s prolific Kent Johnson scored their second. Undeterred Maslak continued to slash at his opponents and was rewarded with another spell in the sin bin at 13:29. Kris Abbott was serving 2-mins for interference at the time so the Lions were not disadvantaged for most of Maslak’s penalty period and no goals were conceded.

That was not the story with the Sharks’ third goal, scored by Andy Way and assisted by Josh Grocutt. Andrzej Maslak had been sent to the penalty box at 18:32 for slashing once more and the goal was scored on the powerplay.

Throughout the first period Lee Valley had bombarded the Gosport goal with no fewer than 19 shots but each attempt had been thwarted by netminder Aaron Taylor whose performance would be impressive throughout.

Already reeling from the shock of being 3-0 down the second period didn’t start any better for the Lions as 34 seconds was all it took for Kent Johnson to score the fourth goal, unassisted.

A further 9 minutes passed before Gosport were given the opportunity to bring the continually rising scoreline to 5-0. Andrzej Maslak was in his second home in the sin bin at the time but had been joined by Gosport’s Kevin Tanner so the goal was scored even-handed.

Sadly Maslak’s release from the sin bin did not prevent Gosport from scoring a short-handed goal past Stefan Nubert, this further blow coming unassisted from Curtis Jeffrey at 29:58.

Up to this point Lions’ netminder Nubert had not enjoyed an exceptional game but neither had his performance given too much cause for concern. The 6-0 scoreline said more about the dire state of Lions’ defence but with hopes of a win now non-existent coach Sergey Smolenko opted to rest Nubert in favour of 17-year-old Andrew Boot. Boot had never played at senior level and his opportunity to debut was clearly unexpected. Boot took up position between the pipes while Nubert understandably could not avoid venting his frustrations.

Once again Gosport were handed a powerplay situation as referee Dean Russell-Samways sidelined Grant Hutcheon for tripping at 34:09. Gosport know how to work their small rink and Kris Abbott wasted no time in scoring unassisted to further widen the scoreline.

At 37:41 Lions’ Andrzej Maslak fell foul of the referee one final time and was ejected from the game for checking the Sharks’ Kevin Tanner. With Romanas Fedotovas already serving a ban this left Lee Valley without foreign players for the remainder of the match.

Gosport scored another powerplay goal at 41:53, Josh Grocutt’s first of the game. This was swiftly followed by a goal from James Bennett, assisted by Kevin Tanner. Tanner assisted on yet another powerplay goal at 51:44. The winning shot was Kris Abbott’s hat-trick and was scored while Scott Beeson served 2-mins for hooking. Josh Grocutt finalised the scoring at 56:17, leaving the humiliated Lions to limp home 11-0 losers.

*The penalties for both teams were incorrectly recorded on the game sheet but signed off by the referee. The correct figures should have been 47 for the Lions and 48 for the Sharks. Thanks to Tony Boot for the calculations.

Referee was Russell-Samways, Linesmen were Harris and Macphe.