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Sports

Wolverines Crush Blackhawks, 10-1

Westwood ice hockey's Brendan Skehill scored four goals and added an assist in a victory over Bellingham Monday night.

The put a beating on the Bellingham Blackhawks 10-1 on Monday night, due to some fine shooting and a barrage of Bellingham penalties.

The Wolverines jumped out in front early, scoring three goals within the first three minutes of the game. The first two goals were part of a four-goal night for Senior Brendan Skehill, who also added an assist. The first goal came less than a minute into the game and was assisted by Seniors Connor Murphy and Kevin Gavin. Gavin also assisted the second goal.

Right-winger Brett Egizi scored an unassisted goal with 12:24 remaining in the first period.

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“We had been off for a week so we wanted to get the rust off our skates as soon as possible,” said Wolverine Head Coach Mike Welby. “We started off quickly like we wanted to and were fortunate to get out there and get some early goals.”

Westwood never looked back from there. The team kept the shots coming and capitalized on Bellingham’s penalties and mistakes. With 5:48 remaining, Gavin scored his 20th goal of the season, assisted by Skehill and Brendan Dalton.

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With 2:41 remaining, Westwood took advantage of a power play after a Bellingham tripping penalty. Andreas Nicolos hit a nice shot from near the blue line for his fifth goal of the season, which was assisted by Egizi. With 1:02 left, Westwood continued the scoring surge on a goal by power play goal by Murphy, which was assisted by senior Brad Adams and junior Shane Maher.

The first period ended with Bellingham looking frustrated, which appeared to translate into roughing and misconduct penalties throughout the rest of the game. In all, Bellingham was penalized 16 times and Westwood took full advantage.

Bellingham played strong defense for the first half of the second period but still couldn’t put the puck in Westwood’s net. In fact, while Westwood didn’t score for the first six minutes of the period, the team still spent the majority of the time in Bellingham’s zone taking shots at will. Westwood took almost 20 shots in the second period alone.

With 7:59 remaining in the second period, Egizi scored a power play goal, assisted by Gavin. Gavin took the puck from across the net and passed across the ice to Egizi, who put a nice wrist shot in the net.

Bellingham finally got on the board with 2:29 left in the second period on a goal by Pat Williamson. However, Westwood responded quickly with a goal by Skehill, which gave him the hat trick. It was assisted by Gavin and Jimmy Curtin.

The third period welcomed less shots, but was full of big hits and penalties on both sides. Most were for roughing, tripping misconduct and slashing. Emotions were running high for both Westwood and Bellingham, and it was showing on the ice.

Westwood had a 5 on 3, which led to a score with 7:50 left in the game. It came on a nice one-timer by Theo Treon, which was assisted by James Drew and Chris Ruggiero.

More penalties followed, and Westwood took advantage again. With 3:53 left Skehill scored again to complete a monumental night during his senior season. Westwood beat Bellingham in all areas of the game and improved their record to 11-1-1 while Bellingham fell to 4-9-1.

Welby said that since Westwood had beaten the Blackhawks pretty handily during their first bout by winning 7 to 2, the team knew it was going to be coming out and wanting to play exceptionally hard against them.

Bellingham’s intensity was evident, but they couldn’t pull off the upset of the number one team in the Tri-Valley League, and arguably one of the best teams in Division 3.

Westwood’s next game will be against Holliston on February 9 at 8:30 p.m. in Canton.

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