The Nats started off the weekend with a 12-goal high-flying home game against the Kemptville 73’s on Friday, March 3. The homeside fell behind in the scoreline thanks to a hat-trick in the first period from Kemptville’s Ty Whyte. Zach Power added one to the board for the Nats to break up the scoring before the end of the first.
Three goals, one each for the Nats’ Yanic Crête and Guillaume Labre followed by a Kemptville power-play goal, in less than four minutes made for an exciting second period also filled with penalties.
In the third, Labre added to his annual tally with a fourth-minute goal to tie up the score until the 73’s took back the lead. Jovan Malay and Ben Albright brought the Nats back on level terms with the visitors and put them in the lead, respectively.
However, Kemptville got their final equalizer in the 15th-minute to bring the game to a scoreless overtime, forcing a shootout. With the Nats first two shooters unable to capitalize the 73’s took the two points with just two of three penalty shots finding their way past Hadyn Gould.
On Saturday, the Nats wouldn’t be lucky enough to keep the scoreline tight against league leader, the Ottawa Junior Senators, who downed the visitors 6-2.
The Junior Senators led the Nats for the entirety of the 60 minutes, scoring twice in each period, letting their guard down only twice on powerplays to let Tim Cousineau and Kellen Dostaler light up the lamp in the first and third period, respectively.
As the regular season reaches its final two weeks, Rockland sits out of range for a playoff berth with a game in hand as Cornwall occupies fourth place in the Yzerman division, just two points ahead of the Nats. Overall, Rockland is in 10th place, third from the bottom of the table in the CCHL.
Points to move up in the standings in the coming week will have to come from an away game against Pembroke on Wednesday, March 9, followed by the Ottawa Junior Senators again on Friday and the Renfrew wolves on Sunday, both at home.
