Hearst victorious in preseason debut with 4-2 win over Cochrane

HEARST, Ont. – The Hearst Lumberjacks picked up a pair of goals from Max Griffioen along with three assists courtesy of Evan Look to help them defeat the Cochrane Crunch 4-2 Wednesday evening in their Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League preseason debut at Claude Larose Arena.

Austin Caza staked the visiting Crunch to an early lead only to see Hearst strike twice on the power play before the first period was complete on man advantage markers via Griffioen and Maxim Lacroix.

Josh Roberts tied it for Cochrane early in the middle stanza, but Samuel Bourdages supplied the Lumberjacks third power play goal of the evening at 12:19 of the middle frame for the eventual game-winner.

Griffioen’s added one more 52 seconds into the third to cap off the scoring and help secure the win in front of 550 spectators.

Artem Bortovskiy faced 19 shots in picking up the win for Hearst while Taylor Unruh was peppered with 51 attempts in defeat for the Crunch.

Next up for the Lumberjacks has them heading to Timmins Thursday to take on the Rock at 7:30 p.m. while the Crunch face-off with the Espanola Express Friday at 8 p.m. in Day 1 play of the Polar Bear Classic at Tim Horton Event Centre.

OFFICIAL GAME SHEET