Power play the difference for Knights over Hawks

WASILLA — Goaltending and special teams.

Find stellar play in net and throw in a couple power-play goals. It seemed to do the trick for the Colony Knights Friday.

Colony scored twice on the power play and junior Forrest Savel stopped 28 Houston shots as the Knights grabbed a 4-2 nonconference win over the Hawks at the Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Ice Arena.

Kevin Hartley scored twice for the Knights, and Hartley and Morgan McJimsey each posted power-play goals for a Colony squad, which earned its first win of the 2010-11 season and the first victory with Smith at the helm.

Juneau-Douglas skated to a 2-1 win over Colony on Thursday.

Darryl Belanger added a late empty-net goal for CHS.

Rye Humphreys and Patrick Thistle scored for Houston, which fell in its season-opener.

“Both teams I thought played pretty well,” Colony head coach Jamie Smith said.

Colony powered its way to a 2-0 lead behind a pair of scores with the man-advantage. But Houston tied the game with scores late in the second and early in the third.

“The second period I thought we played a lot better than the first,” Houston head coach Mike Styers said. “The first period, it’s our first game, you’ve got to get the first-game jitters out.”

The Hawks out-shot Colony 18-13 in the second period, and Humphreys cut Colony’s advantage in half when he took a wrist shot from the right circle and flipped the puck into the far side of the net. Humphreys’ goal came on the power play. Houston was 1-for-8 with the advantage in the game.

“I think they worked pretty hard,” Styers said of his Hawks. “We came back after that first period and kind of got our composure back a little bit.”

Styers’ noticed improvement on the power play particularly.

“Our power play, the first period we didn’t run it,” Styers said. “We were kind of all over the place. The second period, we settled down, were working the power play, passed better. They were not trying to do everything themselves.”

Thistle used the first goal of his high school career to tie the game at 2 early in the third. Humphreys picked up the puck behind the net and centered a pass to Thistle, who was alone in front of Savel and the Knights net.

“(He was at the) right place at the right time, and he put it away,” Styers said.

Hartley scored his second goal of the game with 3:38 left in regulation to snap the tie.

Hartley put his team on the board midway through the first when he fired a shot past Houston goalie Ben Barenburg. In the second, McJimsey took a shot from the point and put the puck high in the Hawks net.

“I thought our young guys played well,” Smith said. “We’re still moving guys around, trying to figure things out.”

For Smith, the game marked his first appearance as Colony’s head coach against his former team. Smith led the Hawks to five 3A state championships in 16 years before stepping away in 2006.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com. Follow him at Twitter at twitter.com/matsu_sports.

Colony 4, Houston 2

Friday, Menard Arena

Colony 1-1-2—4

Houston 0-1-1—2

First period — 1. Colony- Hartley (Belanger) pp 8:13.

Second period — 2. Colony- McJimsey (Boyer) pp 10:35; 3. Houston- Humphreys (Styers, Weisz) pp 2:21.

Third period — 4. Houston- Thistle (Humphreys, Weisz) 9:13; 5. Colony- Hartley (Belanger) 3:38; 5. Colony- Belanger (unassisted) en 0:20.

Shots on goal: Colony 13-18-17—48, Houston 13-9-8—30; Saves: Colony- Savel 13-8-7—28, Houston- Barenburg 12-17-15—44.