The Essex 73’s picked up a crucial win on Monday.

Article content

The Essex 73’s picked up a crucial win on Monday.

Article content

Article content

The 73’s claimed a 2-1 road win over the New Hamburg Firebirds. With it, the 73’s evened the best-of-seven Schmalz Cup semifinal series at 1-1.

“It was a gutsy win because we’re missing a few guys right now,” 73’s head coach Tony Piroski said.

The Firebirds have home-ice advantage in this series. However, because of arena commitments, the series opened in Essex and the 73’s fell in overtime. Not only was Game 2 in New Hamburg, but Game 3 on Wednesday will be another road match for the 73’s.

Article content

“We had to get one out of here and we still need another one at some point,” Piroski said.

Captain Gabe Piccolo scored on a wrap around to put Essex up 2-1 in the second period and teammate Tyler Fleming opened the scoring with a power-play goal.

Essex goalie Brogan Colquhoun stood strong in the third period making 11 of his 20 saves as the 73’s were forced to kill off three penalties in the final period.

“It’s a small building and we won the battles we needed to win and squeaked out a win,” Piroski said. “It’s one of those series that’s going to be a couple of saves here and a break there.”

Saints volleyball recruits

The St. Clair Saints men’s volleyball team is adding six local recruits for the 2025-26 OCAA season.

Cole Martineau, Shaban Alaliwi, Brandon Wiebe, Logan Hensen, Tyler Ray and Charlie Au have committed to the program.

“Bringing in this large class of our strongest local athletes is necessary for success down the road as we are looking at graduating many of our biggest contributing veterans at the end of the upcoming season,” Saints’ head coach Shawn Reaume said. “The advantage of home-grown talent is that it allows us to develop consistently in the off-season to ease in the transition to the young athletes and, ideally, maintain our level of competition within the league.

Article content

“I am very happy with this group and I think we can all expect to see big things from them in the coming years.

Martineau is a six-foot-seven middle hitter from Leamington high school and also has experience with the SKY Volley club program.

The six-foot-four Alaliwi is an outside hitter who helped Holy Names high school to back-to-back WECSSAA titles and has also played with the SKY Volley program.

Wiebe is a six-foot-six outside hitter from Leamington high school and helped the team to WECSSAA and SWOSSAA titles this past season and a berth at OFSAA.

Hensen is a six-foot-seven middle hitter from Erie Migration high school and has also played for the SKY Volley program.

A St. Anne high school product, the six-foot-four Ray plays outside hitter and has a long history with the SKY Volley program.

Au is a five-foot-seven libero out of Assumption high school and helped SKY Volley to a bronze medal at the Ontario Volleyball Association championship.

Arquette earns honour

Sun County Panthers product Cameron Arquette has been the named the Ontario Hockey League’s rookie of the week.

The 17-year-old Arquette, who is from Wheatley, had three assists over four games for the Kitchener Rangers.

jpparker@postmedia.com

twitter.com/winstarparker

Article content