SARNIA - The Sarnia Sting extended a 1-0 first period lead with three unanswered goals in the second period and the Sting went on to defeat the Plymouth Whalers, 4-1, before 3,609 at RBC Centre in Sarnia on Friday night.
Chicago-draft Ludvig Rensfeldt led Sarnia with two goals (15-16) as the game's first star. Reid Boucher scored his 22nd goal of the year for Sarnia and Connor Murphy added his fifth of the year for the Sting.
Stefan Noesen scored the lone Plymouth goal, his 21st of the year, to ruin J.P. Anderson's shutout bid in the third period.
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The loss snaps Plymouth's four-game winning streak and a 14-game winning streak against West Division teams dating back to Nov. 6 in a 2-0 victory in Saginaw. The Whalers have a 15-2-2-1 record against the West Division this season.
Plymouth remains in first place in the West Division with a record of 34-13-2-1, good for 71 points and second in the Western Conference, four points behind behind London (37-11-0-1, 75 points). The Knights lost, 3-2, to Niagara on Friday.
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Sarnia - second place in the West Division and fourth in thr Western Conference - picked up two points on Plymouth, but remains 15 points behind the Whalers with a record of 25-19-1-5, good for 56 points.
The Sting scored the only goal in the first period on a broken play at 12:11. Plymouth goaltender Scott Wedgewood made a save, but the puck trickled in the air and bounced behind him in the blue ice. Rensfledt got his stick on the puck and directed it over the goal line.
Sarnia scored three more goals in the second period. Brett Thompson set up Rensfeldt at 3:41, working the puck from the right-wing half-wall in the Plymouth zone to Rensfeldt in slot, who skated a couple of strides and beat Wedgewood with the shot. Ryan Spooner set up Boucher to give Sarnia a 3-0 lead at 8:03. Spooner took a shot from the right circle through traffic and Boucher banged home the rebound. Murphy made it 4-0 with a shot from the point at 18:09.
Trailing 4-0 into the third period and looking for a spark, Plymouth head coach Mike Vellucci played rookies Matt Mistele, Mitchell Dempsey, Danny Vanderwiel and Mitchell Jones regularly. Noesen scored the lone Plymouth goal at 1:24 of the period, accepting Rickard Rakell pass from the right corner and scoring on a quick backhand on the left side of the Sarnia blue ice.
MORE COVERAGE - David Borody, SarniaSting.com.
