McKINNEY: The Varsity Hockey team traveled north on Sunday night to take on the McKinney Lions in their third game of the season. Looking for their first win after two close losses, the Cardinals seemed to find their game against McKinney, winning 5-3 to improve to 1-2 on the season. In a physical game where McKinney logged 36 penalty minutes and JPII added 12 penalty minutes of their own, the Cardinals were able to capitalize on mismatch opportunities to earn their first win of the year.
The Lions opened up the scoring with less than nine minutes remaining in the first period, but the Cardinals answered back less than 90 seconds later after
Andrew Mosier found
David Silva for the equalizer on a power play. McKinney scored the lone goal in the second period to take the lead heading into the final 15 minutes. The Cardinals'
Logan Sharack found the back of the net to make it 2-2 off an assist from
Aaron Keith, and less than a minute later Keith created another scoring opportunity, assisting on a
Jared Burkhart goal with 12 minutes and change left in the 3rd to take a 3-2 lead. Seconds latet the Lions scored on a powerplay to end a furious two minute scoring stretch, tying things up at 3 apiece. JPII would take a 4-3 lead with less than seven minutes to go as Keith notched his third assist of the game, finding Jimmy Enna near the net. The Cardinals added some insurance with under two minutes to play as Enna snuck one past the Lions' goalie to seal the game, your final score 5-3. JPII goalie
Jorge Villarreal was fantastic in net, stopping 11 shots on the night.
The Cardinals go back to work on Sunday, October 6th at 5:45pm against Mansfield at the Mansfield Starcenter
