TIMMINS, Ont. – Cochrane Crunch captain Connor Lovie collected his first Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League hat trick to help his side to an eventual 7-5 victory over the Timmins Rock in a Family Day match-up Monday afternoon in front of nearly 1,000 fans at McIntyre Arena.
Kyle Herbster started things off for the Crunch with his 33rd of the campaign five minutes into the contest.
Timmins would tie it late in the opening frame when Evan Kentish-Stack notched his eighth to level the proceedings heading into the middle frame.
In the second, a Lovie power play blast put the visitors back in front early in the stanza only to see the Rock knot the affair once more at 5:19 thanks to Derek Seguin.
Cochrane took over from there though as they tallied three times in rapid succession with Laramie Kostelansky and Lovie both connecting on a four-minute man advantage while Kostelansky added another 26 seconds later to put them up by three after two periods.
The Crunch then upped their lead early in the third on a Levi Johnson effort at 1:43.
Lovie then added his third power play marker of the afternoon seven minutes later as the Cochrane defenceman picked up his 12th tally of 2017-18.
Timmins came to life after that however and scored three times late to make it interesting beginning with a single from Jordan Picard before Seguin struck twice to finish off his initial three-goal game before time expired.
Taylor Unruh of the Crunch made 19 saves in net to hold on for the win.
Eric Jackson started for Timmins and suffered the loss making 28 stops along the way while Tyler Mastenak handled all six attempts he saw in nine minutes of second period relief.
Photos courtesy of Thomas Perry, The Daily Press (Timmins)
