Under 12 - 24th February 2008

Cardiff Dragons 2 - 4 Milton Keynes

The Cardiff Dragons under 12’s welcomed Milton Keynes Storm to the Cardiff Bay ice arena for this the 3rd place decider. Milton Keynes currently in 3rd place and Cardiff just 1 point behind in the league table.

The season has seen Cardiff’s under 12’s perform well above expectation having returned to the A division, and to remain in the A division was the ultimate goal for this season.

Cardiff today played without 4 of their team including captain Callum
Buglass and net minder James Whiting.

The game started at a steady pace with Milton Keynes trying for an early
goal but Cardiff’s net minder James Robinson who was playing his first ever
ice hockey match kept them at bay. That was until Cardiff went for a line
change and in the process Milton Keynes Matthew Clements slotted home the first goal of the game showing everyone why he is the under 12’s top goal scorer.

Cardiff picked up the pace and piled on the pressure which led to Cardiff’s
1st goal. With some good passing between Owen Griffiths and Tom Parkinson they opened up the Milton Keynes defence allowing Tom to net his 28th goal of the season. Cardiff continued to push forward but with the Milton Keynes net minder on top form the Dragons could not find a way passed him.

At 16.59 and against the run of play Milton Keynes scored their second. Again Matthew Clements setting up Luc Johnson to score passed Ben Robinson.

Cardiff were now chasing the game and continued to press hard. With 18.59 on the clock and with a Milton Keynes player in the sin bin the puck fell to Milton Keynes Macauley Gadsby who unassisted went one on one with Dragon’s net-minder Ben Robinson and managed to score, resulting in Milton Keynes third goal with just 1 second remaining in the 1st period.

Cardiff started the second period as they finished the 1st and at 3-1 down
they needed an early goal which they were rewarded with at 24.35 while on a power play. Great team work by Owen Griffiths and Tom Parkinson led to Owen Griffiths finding the back of the net.

Cardiff kept pushing and pushing but Milton Keynes net minder was not giving anything up and at 34.04 Milton Keynes key player Matthew Clements slotted home his 2nd of the game and his 39th of the season.

With the score now at 4-2 Cardiff tried all ways to pull out a win but Milton Keynes hung on until the end.

Shots on M/K Net minder: 26
Shots on Cardiff Net minder: 22
Man of the match for Cardiff: Liam O’Keefe
Spirit of the game for Cardiff: Krystof Gibbon