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Phoenix U-16's enjoy Teeside romp
Billingham Bombers 2 - 7 Phoenix U-16s
Saturday January 3rd saw the Manchester Phoenix U-16 team travel to the cold of Teeside and the Billingham Forum, home to the Bombers. Phoenix iced eleven skaters with coach Greg Allen having to don a helmet on the bench following to comply with local insurance regulations.
The opening period saw several Phoenix players appearing to think they were still in the Christmas recess as they put in a lack-lustre performance with the early highlight being a superb diagonal pass from Jordan Bannon for Jared Dickenson to produce a deft flick of the stick to notch his and the Phoenix's first goal with barely four minutes played. However, the hometown Bombers replied almost instantly as the Phoenix defence went to sleep. With ten minutes played, Jordan Bannon restored the Phoenix lead with a solo effort starting from his own blue line, mesmerising the opponents with his dipsy-doodling around the Bombers before netting with consummate ease.
The second period saw Phoenix come out fired up, applying pressure to their hosts goal and again, it was the combination of Bannon feeding Dickenson for the visitors third marker. With Callum Greenhalgh serving a penalty, Bannon broke away shorthanded to further extend the Phoenix lead to 1-4. Billingham by now realised that they could not win the match by playing hockey and their game degenerated with some niggling play resulting in a goalmouth melee after another Phoenix 'goal' was disallowed. The nett result saw Bannon sin-binned for a ten-minute misconduct penaly along with Josh Sweet, Ryan Hulme and Luke Smith all on two-minute minors.
The final session period saw the visitor`s penalty box finally being cleared and Phoenix turning the screw with a goal from Ollie Townsend for their fifth and again the Bannon-Dickenson combination for the sixth. Billingham recovered some self respect by forcing home their second goal of the game, but the final word went to the Phoenix as the Bombers goalie failed to hold onto a blistering shot from Hulme and Townsend was perfectly positioned to net his second and the Phoenix seventh.
Phoenix MVP - Ollie Townsend
