Pitbulls Fall To Knights

By Xanthe Boursier-Gazzard

The Drive Bristol North Pitbulls faced a double header against the Leeds Knights at the weekend, falling to two losses, both home and away.

The weekend started in the Pound playing Bristol’s second home league game of the season. The Pitbulls continued to have both Jacob White-Sey and Cam Hamill out of the lineup through injury and Reece Cochrane through a continued suspension from the 24/25 season. Despite this, we saw Bobby Ragan and Bayley Harewood back on the Pitbulls bench for the home fixture.

The Pitbulls were quick to open the scoring as Oli Endicott received a two-minute roughing call, allowing Josh Batch to light the lamp, putting the home team on the scoreboard just under two minutes into the game. However, the lead didn’t last long for the Pitbulls, with Fin Bradon taking a neat pass from Innes Gallacher and sweeping it past the pads of Tommy Nappier to equalise. Kieran Brown accompanied this with a shorthanded breakaway to give the visitors the 2-1 lead. Penalties were called back and forth between both teams; however, this couldn’t stop both Brown and Bradon from extending the scoreline to four, with another shorthanded goal being scored to finish off the first period.

The Knights continued to push their lead in the second with Edgars Vengis taking the rebound from Endicott and delivering the puck to the back of the net. Chances followed for the away team coming from Bow Neely and Matt Bissonnette; however, Nappier was able to hold shots from both. Penalties continued to be called for both teams before Balint Pakozdi could get one more goal in the second period on the power play.

As the final twenty minutes got underway, the home team made a change of netminder to Harry Thomas for the remainder of the game; however, the Knights continued their goal-scoring spell as Liam Peyton and Arturs Mickevics generated the seventh and eighth goals for the away side. Jake Bricknell was able to get one more for the Pitbulls before the end of the game as Sam Cooper sat for boarding, allowing him to launch a shot past Gospel, finalising the score at 8-2.

Man of the Match for the home side went to Josh Batch and to Fin Bradon for the visitors.