By: Michael Bennett, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Ridgetown Independent News
A new home – same results.
The Ridgetown Royals baptized the Ken Houston Memorial Ag Centre in Dresden with a 14-0 rout of the Thousand Island Raiders on Saturday night.
The victory extends the Royals’ perfect home record to 13-0, as they won all 12 regular-season games at the East Kent Memorial Arena before being forced to change address to Dresden for the playoffs.
The win also gave the Royals their first American Premier Hockey League playoff series victory as they swept the Raiders in two straight games in the Eastern Conference semifinal.
Ridgetown won the series opener 7-2 in Clayton, N.Y., on March 14.
The Royals will face the Buffalo Tempest in the Eastern Conference final, which will be a best-of-three series.
Game 1 is this Saturday in Buffalo, but Games 2 and 3 won’t be played until the April 11-12 weekend in Dresden.
The APHL schedules only one game on the opening weekend of a series. With the ice coming out of the East Kent Memorial Arena at the end of March and with the league not scheduling games on the Easter Weekend (April 3-4), Game 2 will be Saturday, April 10 and Game 3, if necessary, Sunday, April 11, in Dresden.
In Saturday’s clincher in Dresden, the mystery was over quickly as the Royals built a 4-0 lead before the 10-minute mark of the opening period.
The Royals added a fifth goal later in the opening stanza before netting four more in the second period and finished with a five-goal third.
Thirteen Royals hit the game sheet, including 10 different goal scorers, as they scored their 14 goals on 47 shots.
Brendan Ritchie led the attack with a three-goal night.
Shawn Noah and Steve Beenackers were the other multiple-goal scorers, each scoring a pair and adding an assist.
John McKillop and Dakota Bohn both had five-point nights with a goal and four assists each.
Dave Beenackers and Brody Fraleigh had a goal and two assists each, Vinnie Varadarasa had a goal and an assist, while Nolan VandenBoorn and Josh Farrugia added a goal each.
Spencer Clarke had a three-assist night while Landon Hoskins had two.
Owen Lemieux stopped 22 shots for the shutout.
The fans were baring in the seats when Varadarasa scored at the 50-second mark.
Steve Beenackers made it a 2-0 lead less than two minutes later, while Noah and Bohn put the Royals up by four at the 8:26 mark.
Fraleigh scored the Royals’ fifth goal five minutes later.
The Royals struck quickly in the second period as Steve Beenackers scored at the 43-second mark, followed by his brother Dave four minutes later, as Ritchie and VandenBoorn scored later in the period for a 9-0 lead.
Ritchie’s second of the night put the Royals in double figures 2:21 into the third period, followed by Farrugia 63 seconds later.
The only special teams’ goal of the night was courtesy of Noah, an unassisted shorthanded goal at the 10:47 mark.
McKillop scored with just under four minutes to go before Ritchie completed his hat trick, netting his third of the night with 38 seconds to go.
In the regular season, the Royals outscored their opponents 121-30 in their 12 home wins, including seven games with double figures in goals.
They swept all three home games against the Raiders, winning 20-4, 10-1, and 13-2.
The Royals won three of four regular season games against the Tempest – sweeping a home series on Nov. 15-16 by 8-4 and 8-3 scores while splitting a pair in Buffalo later in the month, winning 3-2 on the Sunday after a 6-5 loss on the Saturday.
Buffalo swept the Wooster (Ohio) Bulls in two straight from the other Eastern semifinal with victories of 11-3 and 8-7.
If the Royals advance to the Governors Cup final, it will be a best-of-five series with Ridgetown hosting Games 1, 2 and, if necessary, 5 in Dresden as they earned home-ice advantage through the playoffs by virtue of posting the best regular season record (19-5-0).
