SAGINAW -- The Saginaw Spirit geared up to play Midwest Division Owen Sound Attack on Saturday night at The Dow Event Center.
The first period saw aggressive play from both teams, but Saginaw opened the scoring early. Buffalo Sabres prospect Justin Kea buried an unassisted breakaway goal despite the Spirit working on a penalty kill. Shortly after, Andrey Alexeev increased the Spirit lead to 2-0, recording his fifth goal of the season assisted by Justin Kea and Nick Moutrey. Saginaw goalie Nikita Serebryakov was stellar in net, denying every Attack shot on goal for a shutout first period.
Early in the second period, Spirit winger Gregg Sutch recorded his first goal of the season assisted by Jacob Ringuette. Seconds later, Jimmy Lodge converted a rebounded shot assisted by Eric Locke and Jason Shaw, to give the Spirit a 4-0 lead. The Attack fired back late in the period when Keevin Cutting scored his fourth goal of the season assisted by Gemel Smith. After forty minutes of play, the score was 4-1 Saginaw lead.
To open the third period, Spirit Assistant Captain Eric Locke scored on an out-of-position Attack goalie Aaron Taylor. Assists on his goal went to Dalton Young and Jimmy Lodge. To make the score 5-2, Attack center Gemel Smith scored with assists to Kyle Hope and Joseph Blandisi. Recording the last goal of the night, scoring an identical goal to his first of the game, Justin Kea managed to re-create his shorthanded, unassisted, breakaway goal. The Saginaw Spirit claimed the victory over the Owen Sound Attack 6-2.
