(Isaac Pascoal in action for the Cobourg Cougars. He leads the club with five goals and five assists following a four-point game Monday night against the Trenton Golden Hawks. File photo by Tim Bates/OJHL Images)
By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
The Trenton Golden Hawks rallied with five straight goals in the third period to defeat the Cobourg Cougars 7-5 on Monday night and remain undefeated in the early going of the Ontario Junior Hockey League season.
Trailing 5-2 at the time, four of those goals were scored in a span of less than five minutes to put the Golden Hawks in front for the first time in the contest at the Cobourg Community Centre.
Stephan MacDonald at 4:28 and Jake LaVille at 5:58 of the final frame tallied power-play goals, Aiden McIntosh with his second of the game evened the score at 7:36 and Matthew Cato netted the go-ahead marker at 9:15. Lucas Robinson helped seal the victory for the Golden Hawks (now 4-0-0-0) with an empty-goal with 11 seconds remaining.
Early in the third, Isaac Pascoal scored his second of the night and team-leading fifth goal to extend the Cougars lead to three. He opened the scoring just over five minutes into the first period and teammate Mason Chitaroni made it 2-0 midway through the opening frame with his first OJHL goal. The Soo Greyhounds AAA product from Marathon played last season for the Blind River Beavers of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League.
Jake Campbell responded for Trenton with a shorthanded goal in the 13th minute of the first and McIntosh pulled the Golden Hawks even for the first of two times on a power play just 25 seconds int he second period.
Cobourg led 4-2 by the end of the second period. Kallaway Mercer, of Port Hope making his Cougars debut following a recent release from the OHL’s Peterborough Petes, scored at the 7:33 mark for his his first goal and second point. He earned an assist on Chitaroni’s first-period tally.
Tai York scored late in the second, a power-play goal at 17:57, to give the Cougars their second two-goal advantage of the contest.
Pascoal had a four-point night and leads the Cougars with five goals and five assists through four games.
Golden Hawks goaltender William Nguyen made 32 saves and won his third straight game, including a season-opening 9-5 win against the Cougars while it was the second straight defeat against Trenton for Mason Vaccari.
Cobourg’s next two match-ups are against the OJHL’s newest club, the Haliburton County Huskies, which relocated from Whitby.
The Cougars head to Minden this Saturday for a 4:30 p.m. match-up against the Huskies, which are also 2-2-0-0. The two clubs will meet again next Monday night in Cobourg. Game time is 7 p.m. at the CCC.
