Cardiff Dragons 8 - 2 Solent & Gosport

The Dragons travelled away to face Solent & Gosport Hunters in their last game of this year. The young Dragons are unbeaten this season so far in the league and going in the right direction on their way to be promoted back to division one.

Looking at the statistics, this was to be the Dragons toughest challenge so far and it proved that way just after the starting whistle.

Cardiff's net-minder Ben Parkinson faced more shots at him in the first 20 minutes than in the last two games put together.

The Hunters' bench kept pressurising the Dragons but we were in possession of the puck most of the time but missed out on too many clear chances. The outstanding Solent's goalie kept his team in the game till 9.28 when Dragons #12 Josh Haslam opened the score line with an unassisted goal and 2 minutes later prepared the perfect pass for team captain Josh Galea who netted an awesome slap-shot from the blue line during a Dragons power-play to make it 2-0.

The Dragons showed lots of discipline and team work from the back with defenders keeping shots away from their goalie and creating breakaways for their team mates. It was very physical game from the start and Solent paid for their mistakes and while they had a player serving a penalty Cardiff took the opportunity to gain a comfortable 3-0 lead after a power-play goal from Matthew Thomas.

The start of second and final period the Dragons lost concentration and Solent’s capitalised for the first time just 9 seconds into the period. That woke Cardiff's bench up and Dragons answered with a quick unassisted goal from Josh Haslam (4-1).

The Hunter's net-minder proved that he was the hottest candidate to pick up the MOM award keeping all shots out of his goal and making it very challenging task for Cardiff's team. Though Daniel Mann found Solent's weak spot and made it 5-1 with a shorthanded breakaway goal, perfectly slipped between the goalie's knee pads.

The Dragons kept adding to their points and Jordan Jefferies (JJ) scored from outside the box to give the Dragons a 6-1 lead. With Hunters running out of steam Dragons netted another two goals, one from Daniel Mann and an unassisted goal from Josh Galea. Solent’s best player on the ice, #20 Crockford, managed to push through a consolidation goal just seconds before the final whistle, to make it final 8-2.

The under 14's are improving game by game and working as a team to get ready for their biggest match at the beginning of new year, this being against Lee Valley on January 13th to decide who takes the top place in the group as both teams are unbeaten so far this season.

MOM #19 Luke Southwood
SOG #8 Jordan Jefferies
Statistics
Matthew Thomas 1+0, Daniel Mann 2+1, Jordan Jefferies 1+0 , Josh Galea 2+2, Josh Haslam 2+4