HONG KONG—Back from the end of year break, the two top teams, Macau Aces met South China Sharks, faced off in the first match of the evening on Thursday Jan 5, 2017.
Warriors dominated in the first half season to lead the standings by 3 points at the half-way stage of the season. So this was a top match to test the leaders. In their 3 previous 3 encounters this year Warriors were leading the battle 2 matches to 1 with Aces winning 9-3 in their first match and then Warriors picking up 2 wins with 6-4 and 5-3 wins. In this new match Aces edged a goal by Magnus Berglind to finish the first period at 1-0. In Stanza 2 Aces pushed further ahead with goals by Jeff Ceccacci and Lokel Wong before Keith Tsang got Warriors on the scoresheet ending the session at 3-1. Warriors were beginning to struggle for fitness after the layoff but were still in the game. But Aces topped out in the final session picking up goals by Fenton Garvie, Matthew Lee, Whitney Olsen and a second by Lokel Wong to finish at 7-1. Closing the gap at the top to a mere 1 point, at 13-12.
The 3 star awards went to Aces players Jeff Ceccacci, Tyler Doherty and goalie Liam Moorefield-Lee with 28 saves.
In the second match of the evening Hong Kong Tycoons took on South China Sharks, with Sharks’ season disappoints continuing. Although winning last time out 9-3 against a depleted Aces side, they had lost a number of matches by just the single score and just can’t get through to win.
Tycoons had won 2 of the 3 previous encounters between the two teams this year with 7-2 and 8-3 results, with Sharks edging their middle match 6-5.
This new fixture was again close through to the end of Period 2 Sharks were first on the score sheet with a goal by Wayne Tsang to lead 11-0 at the turnaround but Tycoons had the edge in session 2 racking up goals by Craig Roessel (2), Ronald Fishman and Jeff Hrabok; while Connor Daly and Blake Steels were on the score sheet for Sharks. This gave Tycoons the edge, to start the final session 4-3. Tycoons pushed on in the final stanza the win 6-3 with strikes by Preston Kwok and Lucas Eshleman,
The 3 star awards were presented to Tycoon players Ronald Fishman and Craig Roessel, and Bradley Holman for Sharks.
