Dukes snatch crown from Royals with three-goal third period

Story by Brock Ormond

Photo: Wellington Dukes

The Wellington Dukes grinded out a victory against a struggling Markham Royals team, 4-1 on Friday night.

Three tallies in the second half of the third period was the spark the Dukes needed to come away with the win going into the Thanksgiving weekend.

Wellington opened the scoring 16 seconds into their first powerplay of the evening, with Ben Vreugdenhil deflecting a Riley Noble point shot over Sebastian Monaco’s shoulder late in the first period.

Zander Latreille ended up with the second assist on the Frankford resident’s team-best seventh of the year.

Markham offered a pushback in the second frame, getting a goal off a scramble from Ashton Miwa just after a penalty kill to knot the score at one.

Neither team gave an inch in the first half of the third, with Jack Lisson making his biggest stop of the night off the OJHL’s only 50 goal scorer last season, Ben Lalkin, on a partial breakaway to keep the game tied.

The key turning point came on a goal more than halfway through the third from Ethan Murray, beating Sebastian Monaco on a rebound from Tyler Tsoukalas and Logan Sitlani for his fourth of the year.

The Royals attempted to get the goal overturned through the OJHL’s new video review challenge system, but failed, as the goal stood, and they incurred a two-minute delay of game penalty.

29 seconds later, the score moved to 3-1 on Cory Jewitt’s powerplay insurance marker, his sixth of the year from Latreille and Vreugdenhil.

With the help of Murray, Cooper Reid walked off the boards and labeled his first goal as a Duke top shelf with about three minutes to go to finish the Royals.

Lisson made 23 stops in his return to the net to help Wellington improve to 6-5 on the season.

The Dukes outshot Markham 31-24.

Following a couple days off, Wellington tangles with the Toronto Jr. Canadiens at 2 p.m. Thanksgiving Monday.