Crunch connect early leading to win over Lumberjacks

HEARST, Ont. – The Cochrane Crunch stormed out to an early three-goal lead and never trailed as they went to on defeat the Hearst Lumberjacks 5-1 Sunday in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play at Claude Larose Arena.

Cochrane needed just 43 seconds after the opening face-off to get on the board thanks to Levi Johnson’s seventh goal of the season.

Eli Hernandez added to the Crunch cushion just over 11 minutes later before Clay Ellerbrock connected at 14:13, while his side was down a man, to put the visitors up 3-0 after one period of play.

Hearst did regroup to begin the second stanza thanks to Max Johnson who picked up his 14th tally of the campaign at 1:49.

However Cochrane got that back at 11:38 when they picked up their second shorthanded effort of the game thanks to Zach Hayes.

Nicolas Flanders then rounded out the scoring in the third with his 13th marker overall.

Kyle Herbster paced the Crunch offensively with three assists in the triumph.

Taylor Unruh finished with 25 saves to record the win for the Cochrane while Matt Kustra faced 45shots in defeat for the Lumberjacks in the match-up played in front of 703 fans.

With the victory, Cochrane raises their record to 30-15-2-1 while first-year Hearst falls to 18-22-2-1.