Victorious Pitbulls Take Overtime Win Against The Knights

By Xanthe Boursier-Gazzard

The Bristol Drive North Pitbulls took a thrilling 6-5 overtime win against the Knights on Saturday following a game where scorelines were chased back and forth throughout the evening, eventually leading to the home team skating away victorious with their first even win against the Northern side. 

The Knights struck early, with Kieran Brown opening the scoring, taking the rebound from Matt Bissonnette and Owen Sobchak to make the redirect just under three minutes into the first period. Penalties for both teams were exchanged following this, with Jake Bryceland sitting a tripping call that was killed by the Pitbulls before Sam Cooper received two minutes for cross-checking, allowing John Dunbar to skate down the right edge and fire a shot that bounced off of Max Wigfield into the net on the power play to put the home team on the scoresheet. Balint Pakozdi added another for the Knights to restore their lead; however, it wasn’t long before their goal was tailed by Dunbar, who restored the level scoreline, bouncing the puck past the pads of Sam Gospel.

The goals continued to build for both teams throughout the next twenty minutes, with Brown getting his second of the evening, firing a quick shot off the face-off to make it 3-2. Despite this, their lead proved to be temporary as Bryceland went coast to coast, bringing the puck down through neutral ice, beating four Knights players to the net before lighting the lamp with a wraparound goal. Both Kurts Baumanis for the opposition and Dunbar for the Pitbulls had one left in them before the period could come to a close, leaving them equal once again heading into the final period. 

Penalties continued to be called for both teams in the third period; however, neither had an effect on the scoreboard, allowing play to return to five-on-five. Gallacher got the fifth for the away team, skating the ice and finding space behind Tommy Nappier to slide the puck past the goal line. Jake Bricknell and Sobchak both had strong chances following this; however, it wasn’t until Wigfield could gain possession of the puck from Josh Batch that the game could be taken to overtime, as he equalised in the remaining seven minutes. 

Overtime was quickly underway, and it wasn’t long before both Bayley Harewood and John Dunbar could get to work exchanging passes in front of the net, allowing Harewood to chip the puck to the back of the net past the reach of Gospel to secure the two-point evening for the home team.