North Stars gain weekend sweep (with photos)

The Soo North Stars turned in a dominating performance on Sunday to record another weekend sweep.

Despite a large turnover in player personnel heading into the season, the North Stars have continued where they left off last season and are dominating the competition in the Great North Midget League.

Led by a masterful four goal performance from Tyler Gendron, the North Stars completed a two game sweep of the Kirkland Lake 87's with a 7-0 win on Sunday afternoon at the John Rhodes Community Centre.

The locals opened with a 4-2 win on Saturday night.

Gendron opened the scoring just 42 seconds into Sunday's contest off a feed from Paul Dupont and Jason Bird. The same trio combined again at 9:49 for a 2-0 lead.

Gendron completed the natural hat trick at 13:50 of the second period when he cut across the slot and fired a shot past 87's goaltender Cody St. Jacques, who played a solid game despite allowing seven goals.

"It could have been worse but I thought their goaltender played very well," said North Stars head coach Mike Hall. "Gendron was absolutely dominating out there today. He is just getting stronger and stronger every game.

"We didn't have much jump (on Saturday) and we were hoping to come out today with a little more jump and obviously we did. It was only 2-0 after the first period but we outshot them 17-5 and their goaltender kept them in it."

Brad Dicandia and call-up Nathan Ableson scored to give the locals a 5-0 lead after two periods.

The game turned feisty after Ableson's goal with several altercations resulting in misconducts. Dicandia battled Kirkland Lake's Jesse Howg in a fight and each received a game misconduct for their efforts.

Another melee broke out early in the third period after a North Stars' player was jumped. The end result saw local's Trevor McNutt ejected for fighting and Matt Conway receiving a double game misconduct for fighting and being the third man into a fight.

"I have to give Matt Conway a pat on the back," said Hall. "They jumped our smallest player on the team and he is going to come out of it with a suspension but he showed that you are not going to jump the smallest player on our team and get away with it."

Conway and Gendron with his fourth of the game rounded the scoring in the third period. Dupont and Bird recorded three assists each while Derrek Coccimiglio and Jake Reid added two assists each.

Travis O'Brien recorded his fourth shutout of the season after facing only 10 Kirkland Lake shots in net. The North Stars peppered 47 shots on St. Jacques.

"Offensively we're starting to click a little better but the big thing is our defensive effort. That was Travis' fourth shutout this season in seven games," said Hall.

On Saturday, the North Stars used power play goals from Ableson, Bird and Nick Minardi in the 4-2 win. Dupont added a goal and an assist while Gendron chipped in two assists and Bird added one. Ryan Dube recorded the win in goal.

Corey Swiergosz and Steve Wynne replied for the 87's.

The victories improve the North Stars record to 10-1-1-1 for 22 points in the GNML. New Liskeard (8-2-0) is six points back in second place with three games in hand.

"We have a couple of teams close to us but we're putting them in the position where they have to win the games in hand," said Hall.

The locals hit the road next weekend for a game in Valley East on Friday and Rayside Balfour on Saturday afternoon.

Next home action for the North Stars is Nov. 13 and 14 against the Timmins Majors.

(All photos courtesy of Jim Egan.)