Flyers Blanked by Struggling Bakersfield, as Tempers’ Flare Late Published on 12/12/2009 7:26:00 PM
By: Brent W Maranto
The Valencia Flyers opened a three-game weekend home stand vs. the Bakersfield Jr. Condors and continue on to division-rival San Diego in the final two games of the weekend.
After Friday night’s dismantling at the hands of the lowly Jr. Condors, the Flyers now look to take two out of three on the weekend.
The Flyers may have caught themselves looking too far forward with the Western States Shoot Out coming up next week and Bakersfield made them pay. Michael Pittman stopped all 43 shots he faced and hat-tricks from both Jake Commeau and Matt Butler helped the Jr. Condors to cruise to an 8-0 victory at Ice Station Valencia.
Again the Flyers came out hard to begin the game and carried play, tallying nine shots on goal before Bakersfield was credited with its first. However, Bakersfield’s first shot of the game, five and a half minutes into the period, was a goal by Matt Butler that got the Jr. Condors onto the board first.
Flyers’ defenseman Cameron Noland and forward Alex Stephens could not decide who should get to the puck deep in the Flyers’ zone. Bakersfield Captain Jake Commeau gladly picked the puck up in the corner and centered the puck to the slot, where Butler wasted no time beating Estep over the blocker, for his 4th goal of the season.
No more scoring would take place in the opening period, as both teams still showed some rust, as the Flyers had not played since December 1st, an overtime victory of Long Beach. Giving the Flyers no excuse however, was the fact that the Jr. Condors had not played since November 22nd, a game they dropped to Idaho which completed a three game sweep for the Jr. Steelheads.
The Flyers outshot Bakersfield 18-5, out-chanced them 4-3 and even out-hit the visitors 16-15, but the Jr. Condors led where it mattered, 1-0 after one period of play.
The second period was one the Flyers would rather soon forget, as Bakersfield clicked for five goals and took a commanding 6-0 lead into the locker room.
Flyers’ forward Tyler McGreevy was off serving a roughing minor that carried over from the end of the first period, when Bakersfield capitalized on its first power play of the evening.
Butler notched his second of the game and 5th of the season, with Commeau again garnering the primary assist and Kyle Hawkins adding the secondary helper just 23 seconds into the period.
With 10:34 left in the period Commeau would score one of his own, his 7th of the campaign, as he broke in all alone after receiving a pass from Cory Love and beat Estep with a slick backhand move to make it 3-0.
The goal, although not directly Estep’s fault, prompted Coach Bill Muckalt to pull his starting goaltender in favor of the backup Andrew Lux.
Lux would fair no better however, as Commeau would strike for his second of the game and 8th of the season just over four minutes later. Commeau found himself in the right place at the right time as he banged home a rebound off anA.J. Ramirez shot with 6:12 left in a period that could not end soon enough for the Flyers.
Commeau would get the rare natural hat-trick with 2:42 left in the second, scoring his 9th of the season, and fifth point of the game, again off an assist from Ramirez.
For good measure Butler would complete a hat-trick of his own less than a minute later with a short-handed breakaway goal.
Butler’s goal, his 6th of the season, was assisted by Love and Brenden Kelso and would all but hand Bakersfield its first regulation win in its last ten games.
The Flyers still led in shots by a wide margin, 34-21 after two and scoring chances were now even, but Bakersfield seemed to capitalize on every opportunity they received. On the other end of the spectrum the Flyers struggled in all facets, especially the power play, which failed to score on five chances after two periods of play.
The final period was one of the longest of the year for two reasons. Reason one being the simple fact that the Flyers were being outplayed heavily by a team they had beaten five out of six previous meetings. The second reason was due to the amount of penalties and stoppages; as both teams combined for 172 penalty minutes in the third period alone.
Bakersfield would once again strike early into a period, as Mike Conner scored his 3rd goal of the season, off yet another assist from Ramirez just 33 seconds into the third.
Kyle Hawkins would tally his first of the season on the power play with 5:16 left in the period that would never end, redirecting a shot by Cameron Coburn over the blocker of Lux.
Casey Dennis dropped the mitts for the second time in the game with Bakersfield’s registered tough guy Brandon Bullett and had a solid showing before both combatants got the boot for their second fighting major of the night.
Alex Descheneaux dropped the gloves later in the period with Andrew Hallmark and the 16 year-old worked over the bigger fighter in a spirited bout.
And things got a little out of hand with 7:02 left, as a line brawl nearly took place, with Jake Ryan, Cameron Noland and Jimmy Velasquez handing out punishment to Jeff Dill, Mike Conner and RJ Preisser.
As the final buzzer sounded, Bakersfield, who had only scored five total goals in their previous three games against Idaho, had rolled over the Flyers 8-0.
Michael Pittman took the win in net, shutting out the Flyers for the second time this season, and moved his record to 5-15-1.
Jake Commeau played the game of his life and with three goals and two assists moved his point total on the season from nine to 14.
Matt Butler’s hat-trick moved him up to double digits in points, now with 11.
Lastly A.J. Ramirez had three assists and now has 13 points for the year.
With no scoring of any kind to report for the Flyers, Casey Dennis, Alex Descheneaux and Cameron Noland stood up for their team when things started to get chippy, something that may bring this team together coming into a couple of tough games against San Diego.
Stephen Estep took the loss, allowing the first three goals, dropping his record to 7-9-2.
For the game the Flyers outshot Bakersfield 43-31 and led in hits 61-47.
The Jr. Condors obviously outscored the Flyers 8-0 and led in scoring chances 14-13.
Each team had eight chances on the power play; Valencia failed to score, while Bakersfield lit the lamp twice.
