HEARST, Ont. – After falling behind by two, the Hearst Lumberjacks rallied back with five unanswered goals, including a pair from Spencer Silver in rapid succession, to skate to a 5-2 decision over the Powassan Voodoos in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League match-up Sunday at Claude Larose Arena.
Despite the setback, Powassan has secured the NOJHL’s regular season title and are guaranteed to be the No. 1 seed in the upcoming playoffs.
They hold the head-to-head tie-breaker on both the Timmins Rock and Rayside-Balfour Canadians, who can only pull even with them in the overall standings by winning their remaining games and hope the Voodoos lose their final three outings.
Sunday’s tilt saw a red-hot Ryan Mills score for a sixth straight outing as his 19th overall 11:22 in gave the guests a 1-0 lead after one period of play.
Powassan then went up by a pair early in the middle session with Joe Whittet finishing off his 21st of the year with help from Jacob Peterson-Galema.
Hearst roared to life just past the midway mark of the match-up as they erupted for four goals in a two and a half minute span to break things open.
Jake Desando started the offensive outburst before Silver struck twice, 20 seconds apart, to put the home side in front.
Not done there, Trystan Mughal capped off the period with his ninth as the hosts took a 4-2 cushion into the intermission.
The score stayed that way until the late going of regulation when Hearst’s Dominic Dumas put one into an empty net to round out the scoring.
Making 29 saves to register his first NOJHL victory was Lumberjacks’ starter Caleb VanHeest.
Christian Cicigoi started for Powassan and suffered the loss, allowing four against on 48 shots while Owen Say made two saves in a late relief stint.
