Hard days Knights for Phoenix U-18s - Solihull Knights 5 - 4 Phoenix U-18s
An under-strength Phoenix U-18 squad lost out by the odd goal in nine at Solihull on Sunday. Short of three players and with Max Drakeley nursing an injured shoulder, Phoenix struggled to make their presence felt against the Knights.
Despite opening brightly, Phoenix fell behind in the fourth minute to a breakaway by Richard Slater. The visitors responded with great composure a minute later, Alex Pugh converting a nice feed from Tom Revesz. Manchester continued to maintain good possession but lacked the clinical killer instinct aptly demonstrated when Oli Bayne went close in the twelfth minute only to be blanked by Solihull’s netminder Sam Hewitt. Two more goalmouth scrambles went unrewarded before Solihull tested the Manchester keeper, Matt Leeming saving bravely to deny another Slater breakaway.
Early in the second period Phoenix went short handed as Josh Healey picked up a two minute Roughing call. The defence, under Ashton Jenion and Max Drakeley, coped well with the penalty kill and set up a promising breakaway, only for Ben Brown to shoot wide. He made amends shortly afterwards setting up Conner Dakin to edge Phoenix ahead in the 26th minute. But from that point, things horribly wrong. With the Knights’ Jay MacFadyen sitting a Tripping call it was his team-mate Slater who did the damage, netting short handed in the 29th minute and then assisting Connor Hubbock a minute later to put the home side back in charge. Phoenix coach Nick Crawley re-arranged his lines to try and kick start a Phoenix revival and it paid off as the equaliser came in the 38th minute, Josh Healey scoring top shelf to send the teams to the locker room tied at the second break.
The home side regained the initiative within a minute of the re-start, Hubbock converting from Andrew Whitehouse. Both sides traded penalties in the 42nd minute and Phoenix drew level on the 4-on-4 play, Max Drakeley’s fierce slapshot only parried by the Knights netminder and Marc Etherington making no mistake with the rebound. But Solihull were not to be denied and the ding–dong continued as Charles Gordon grabbed their fifth from close range at 44’45”. A simmering row between Solihull’s Lee Winwood and Manchester’s Jordan Bannon came to the boil and respective ten-minute Misconduct penalties ensued. Ashton Jenion also fell foul of the officials with a Hooking minor and Matt Leeming was forced into two excellent saves to keep the Knights from pulling further ahead. With five minutes left, a Drakeley shot created the talking point of the period – and a story of what might have been. Supporters of both teams witnessed the puck fly into the net, but the officials amazingly saw fit to deny the Phoenix an equaliser. To add insult to injury, Drakeley left the ice with following a 2+10 call shortly afterwards, leaving the Phoenix to rue their third defeat of the season.
A club spokesman commented, “We didn’t show up today. Phoenix out-shot Solihull by almost two to one but didn’t have the drive to make it count. Hopefully we’ll be back to full strength next weekend. We’ve got a lot of tough fixtures coming up and we’ll need to change up a gear if we’re to make progress.”
Phoenix Stats; Marc Etherington 1+1, Conner Dakin 1+0, Josh Healey 1+0, Alex Pugh 1+0, Oli Bayne 0+1, Ben Brown 0+1, Max Drakeley 0+1, Tom Revesz 0+1,
Nets: Matt Leeming 26/5
MVP: Ashton Jenion
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