HEARST, Ont. – The Cochrane Crunch scored 11 seconds into the contest and never trailed as they went on to an eventual 5-3 triumph over the Hearst Lumberjacks Wednesday evening in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play at Claude Larose Arena.
It was Kyle Herbster that staked the Crunch to that early cushion while Austin Stauffer buried his 12th of the campaign in the final minute of the first period to put the visitors up by a pair.
Another early marker to begin the second saw Cochrane go up by three as Austin Whelan found the back of the net at 1:21.
Hearst got that back a couple of shifts later on a Connor Green effort then pulled to within one at 15:26 compliments of Spencer Silver’s fourth of the season.
However the Crunch countered 27 seconds later to go back up by two with Caleb Dolman connecting to make it 4-2 after two.
Heading into the final frame, Silver secured another quickly as his second of the night came just 15 seconds in.
It stayed that way until the final moments of the match-up before Herbster potted one into an empty net while his club was shorthanded to wrap things up.
Shayne Battler made 29 saves to record the win for Cochrane.
Artem Bortovskiy started for the Lumberjacks and allowed three against on six attempts while Nicholas Dube suffered the loss while turning aside 20 of 21 in relief.
With the result the Crunch improved to 8-7-0-0 and Hearst slipped to 6-6-0-0.
