OTTAWA - Just one week after sweeping a tour of Southern Ontario, the Ravens men's hockey team dropped a pair of decisions to Ottawa this weekend.
On Friday night, the Carleton Ravens took the short drive to face the Ottawa Gee-Gees and found themselves in the lead midway through the second. With the Ravens on the powerplay, Kieran Craig (Hawkesbury, Ont.) jumped on a Reese Belton rebound to open the scoring.
The lead would hold until just before the end of the period when Luka Verreault would tie the game for the garnet. Ottawa would take the lead in the third, just 6:28 into the period when Verrault scored his second of the night, fourth of the season, just after the Ravens failed to score on the powerplay. Both teams would exchange power play opportunities late in the period but neither team could grab an edge.
The Gee-Gees would add some insurance in the final minute as Justin McRae scored into the empty net for the 3-1 final.
The two teams would meet again on Saturday night at the Ice House and things quickly went downhill for the Ravens. Tommy Bouchard opened the scoring on a partial break 7:31 into the contest and Anthony Poulin scored just 1:16 later to make it a 2-0 Ottawa lead.
Reese Belton (Winnipeg, Man.) would respond for Carleton before the end of the period. With the Gee-Gees in transition, Simon Kerr made a great play at the line to keep the puck in the zone for Oliver Castleman, who spotted Belton alone on a partial breakaway. The Ravens rookie made no mistake in scoring his fourth goal of the season to cut the lead to 2-1 after one.
It was all Gee-Gees early in the second period as Evan Boucher tallied 46 seconds into the period before Marc-Antoine Seguin added another 2:03 later to extend the lead. Then, with Carleton on the power play defenceman David Lafrance finished a rush with Luka Verrault for his first of the season and the Ravens trailed 5-1 after two.
The final forty minutes crawled along, with a number of physical plays and scrums bringing tense delays between whistles. The Gee-Gees would make the most of a Kieran Craig penalty that carried over from the second, scoring their lone power play goal of the night early in the third before Verrault added another 3:11 into the final frame to cap off a 7-1 Gee-Gees win.
The Ravens remain at home this weekend when they welcome their alumni back to the Ice House. As Carleton marks their 15th season in the OUA, the weekend promises to be a great celebration of Carleton Ravens hockey.
Catch all the action when the team hosts RMC on Friday night and Queen's on Saturday with both games dropping the puck at 7:00 PM.
