Rocky Mountain takes 2 from Thunder Bay in NAPHL play

RISCO, Texas – The Thunder Bay Kings dropped a pair of contests Saturday to the Rocky Mountain RoughRiders from Colorado in Round 3 action of the North American Prospects Hockey League in Frisco, Texas.

Thunder Bay’s minor midgets were bounced 6-2 by the RoughRiders in a penalty-filled affair while the major midget Kings were edged 2-1 by the U-18 Rocky Mountain side.

The U-16 match-up saw the Kings outshot 37-19 in a game that was scoreless after one.

The RoughRiders then struck three times in the middle session, including two on the power play, to gain the upper hand.

After making it 4-0 in the third, the Kings picked up man advantage markers courtesy of Jeremy Dunmore and Alex Atwill to pull within two.

However a pair of empty netters helped seal the club’s fate in the loss.

Gage Stewart and Julien Lefebvre both same time in goal for Thunder Bay.

In the narrow setback for the major midgets, Rocky Mountain scored once in each of the first two periods before Nicholas DeGrazia converted during a man advantage opportunity seven and a half minutes into the third to bring his side closer as he connected for a fifth straight outing.

The Kings pressed to try and force overtime, but could not get the equalizer before time ran out.

Eric Vanska suffered the close defeat in net.

Thunder Bay’s minor midgets return to the ice tonight at 8 p.m. as they take on the Valley Forge Minutemen.

Sunday’s slate has the U-16 Kings meeting Pursuit of Excellence from Kelowna, B.C., at 8 a.m. while majors square off against the U-18 Nashville Jr. Predators at noon.

All NAPHL games are streamed online live and on demand at HockeyTV.com.