Sun County shines over Thunder Bay

THUNDER BAY – An early goal, an eventual natural hat trick from Cole Coristine, as well as shutout netminding from Ethan Townsend, was all the Sun County Panthers needed as they went on to blank the Thunder Bay Kings 7-0 Friday evening at the All-Ontario under-13 AAA championship, presented by BioSteel, at the Fort William Gardens.

Sun County came out flying and scored on the game’s first shot as Matthew Taylor dashed down the left wing and fired one over the glove of Thunder Bay starter Carter Johnson 22 seconds into the proceedings.

Taylor than added another a couple of minutes later as he finished off a crisp give-and-go with Gianluca McClure.

The Kings had a tremendous opportunity to cut into the deficit when Cooper Disher was obstructed on a break and was awarded a penalty shot.

However, Panthers goalkeeper Townsend outwaited him to stymie Disher on his attempt.

Moving to the middle stanza, the Panthers went up by three as Alex West jammed one in off a goal-mouth for another early period strike.

Roman Shtefan then wheeled around the net and tucked in a nice wraparound effort.

Adding a fifth marker, Coristine took a Carter Trudell feed from behind the net and hammered a shot past Johnson from the left circle.

Opting to make a goaltending change after that, Kainaan Macgillivray entered the contest for the Kings.

Coristine, his club’s player of the game recipient, added another in the latter stages of the second period, that capped off his impressive night by connecting on a shorthanded breakaway in the third to finish off the night’s scoring.

Gavin Godick was tabbed with the Kings’ player nod.

Photo credit: James Mirabelli