Rookies lead Rayside-Balfour to road win over Cochrane

COCHRANE, Ont. – The Rayside-Balfour Canadians picked up two tallies apiece from rookies Baldino Aiello and James White to help them roll to a 6-1 road triumph over the Cochrane Crunch Friday evening in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League match-up at Tim Horton Event Centre.

Aiello’s first NOJHL goal 86 seconds into the contest staked the visiting Canadians to an early lead.

White notched his initial marker of the evening 15:19 into the frame to make it 2-0 after one period of play.

Rayside-Balfour then broke it open in the middle stanza as they struck three times in an eight-minute span to go up by five.

Brady Maltais started the outburst at 8:36 before Brandon Atkins initial NOJHL goal and White’s second of the night and third overall put the guests in control entering the third.

In the final session Josh Roberts put the Crunch on the board at 4:19 before Aiello iced it with a power play marker midway through to round out the scoring.

MacKenzie Savard made 32 stops to pick up the win for the Canadians.

Taylor Unruh started for Cochrane and suffered the loss in just over 26 minutes of work allowing three against on 19 attempts.

Josh Barrett also gave up three while making 16 saves in relief for the Crunch.