MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. – The Metro Jets and MJDP teams played four games over the weekend, coming away with a pair of victories.
The Metro Jets traveled to the Heritage Bank Center in Cincinnati Saturday night, defeating the Cincinnati Jr. Cyclones 10-0 behind three-goal, one-assist performances from Andreas Fleutot and Chad Noetzel. Dakota Kott chipped in four assists and Rocco Stolz made 16 saves between the pipes.
“The boys played well,” said Jets associate coach Tina Ciraulo. “It was nice to see (Tyler) Husted, (Joey) Mocnik, Noetzel and Fleutot moving the puck around and getting some goals. The boys can enjoy the win tonight but come Monday, it is back to work to get ready for the next game on Friday night.”
Husted recorded a goal and two assists, Mocnik and Yarne Vaerewyck added a goal and an assist each, and Ethan Hellman found the back of the net. Michael Lucia and Alex Schaumburger posted three assists apiece.
For Cincinnati, Blake Mitchell finished with 53 saves.
The MJDP started the weekend dropping a 3-1 decision to the Motor City Gamblers Thursday at Mount Clemens Ice Arena.
Pierce Ashcroft netted the lone goal and Taylor White turned aside 34 shots in goal in the loss.
Will Boyer, Nathan Ayuyu and Aidan Canady scored for the Gamblers and Robert Allport stopped 39 shots for the victory.
Friday night, the MJDP picked up a 2-0 shutout as Austin Muirhead made 36 saves in the win over the Battle Creek Kernels at The Rink Battle Creek.
Jacob Lawrence and Bennett Sheppard tallied the goals for the MJDP.
“Much better effort from (Thursday),” Jets associate head coach Jamie Lovell said. “We played with energy and pace from the drop of the puck. We created a lot of turnovers which led to chances. We still need to make better decisions offensively and bear down to bury those chances, but if we keep playing like that, eventually we will convert more of those.
“Austin Muirhead was incredible for us tonight in net. Calm, solid, made things looks easy, which gave our team a lot confidence in front of him, but we don’t want to make it difficult on our goalies, thinking they need to be perfect. We need to give them more goal support, too.”
Galvin Reagan made 43 saves for the Kernels.
Finishing up the weekend, the MJDP fell 3-0 Sunday afternoon to Motor City at Big Boy Arena in nearby Fraser.
White and Andrew Parmentier combined to make 29 saves in goal for the MJDP.
“We’re going through a tough scoring slump right now,” Lovell said. “I think it was evident that we got the better scoring chances. We outplayed Motor City, had far more possession and zone time, but when we made mistakes, they scored on their chances, and we just couldn’t find any luck ourselves. We still made costly mistakes that we need to address, but I still think we deserved a better fate than we got here today. That’s hockey sometimes – you lose when you probably deserve to win, and win the odd game that you probably deserve to lose.
“We have to be more resilient as a group, and believe that those chances will eventually start to go our way if we keep believing in the things we work on each day, each week. And it will be more rewarding that way, once we figure it out.”
Boyer, Owen Ott and Brian Bell registered Motor City’s goals and Allport had 39 saves.
This coming weekend, the MJDP is idle while the Jets are on the road Friday night to play the Toledo Cherokee at 7 p.m. from the Team Toledo IceHouse before coming home Sunday to host Battle Creek at 2:30 p.m.
All USPHL games are available on HockeyTV.com.
