It had been nearly three weeks since Chris Schmitt started a game for the L/A Fighting Spirit, but the 17-year-old goalie stopped all 18 shots he faced to earn a 4-0 shutout victory over the Northeast Generals on Saturday night at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
The win halted a two-game losing streak for the Fighting Spirit. L/A last won Nov. 20th, a 3-2 victory over the same Generals’ team.
“He was excited to play; he’s a young kid and understands he’s here to develop,” L/A Fighting Spirit acting head coach Cam Robichaud said. “He’s been developing nicely, and it was time to give him a game.
“He’s been working hard. We’ve had some goaltending issues and it was his time. He did pretty well, he had a couple big stops when he needed to early when it was tied 0-0 and we had the 1-0 lead.”
Clifford Ogle put the Fighting Spirit on the board first with a power-play goal at the 8:37 mark of the second period. The assists went to Dylan Vrees and and Matthew Siegel.
Ogle notched his second goal on the power play 6:20 into the third period, with Siegel notching his second assist while JP Chauvin had the secondary assist.
“Ogle had a good game, I believe it was two power play goals,” Robichaud said. “We changed our power play a little bit and he did a good job of understanding his role — being in the position he should be in. Fortunately, he was able to crack a couple of rebounds that came from Vrees.”
The Fighting Spirit were 2-for-4 on the power play, while Northeast was 0-for-1.
Vrees stretched the lead to 3-0 with his 18th goal of the season with 5:43 remaining in the contest. Kyle Secor and Andrew McCormick set the goal up.
Secor and McCormick also set up the fourth the fourth goal of the night as defenseman Walker Hamilton potted his sixth of the season with 2:34 left to play.
Peter Ciccarelli made 35 saves for Northeast.
The Fighting Spirit hit the road for 3:30 p.m. tilt Sunday against the East Coast Minutemen.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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