Recap

TC Cars Solihull Barons : 11
Blackburn Hawks : 0
EIHA Midlands Cup Final – Second Leg

The Barons win 18:7 on Aggregate over the two legs and win the Midlands Cup

After Saturday’s closely fought first leg, the dominance of the TC Cars Solihull Barons over the Blackburn Hawks in Sunday’s Sundays 2^nd leg in Solihull showed that the first silverware of the season, the Midlands cup, would find its way to the Barons trophy cabinet in a one sided display.

The first period was largely spent in the Hawks end and it was a strong display by Harrison Walker which would keep the Barons at bay for much of this time. The Barons first came thanks to Marcus Maynard after only two and half minutes as the Solihull Captain’s initial long range shot missed the Hawks goal but when the puck rebounded of the back netting he was quick to capitalise and tapped home the opener.

The Barons continued to pour forward onto the Hawks net through the rest of the period but strong play by Walker held them off until the final two minutes. Andy Whitehouse winning a face-off in the Hawks end and hooking the puck back to Thomas Janak on the blue line whose shot first found Paul Stanley, then Whitehouse himself for the chip in from a foot out. For their part the Hawks countered when they could but struggled to sustain any pressure or challenge Sam Hewitt and the Barons would carry the two goal advantage into the second period.

The Hawks came into the second period and displayed a short spell of positive play following an early Barons penalty and, had a goal been found at this time, the character of the period may have been different. As it was, no goal came and when back to even strength it was Dave Rogers of the Barons who found the net with a shot from the left hand circle following a cut back pass by Niklas Ottosson to earn Solihull’s third of the evening.

On the 28^th minute the Hawks suffered something of a breakdown and conceded three goals in a single minute. The Blackburn D allowed the Solihull forwards to skate in from centre ice leaving Harrison little support in defending his net. Daniel Mulcahy got the first of this trio of goals before Rich Slater would find the net twice in 10 seconds. By period end Andy Whitehouse had added to the Barons total to see them head into the final period 7 goals for with no loss.

The final period continued with the Barons racking up the goals, Niklas Ottosson with a simple back post tap in of a Phil Mulcahy feed in the opening minute of the period. With the result and destination of the cup certain, the game then seemed to settle down a bit, loosing a bit of pace and intensity as Sam Hewitt and Harrison Walker kept their respective goals empty. A cross check to Niklas Ottosson after the whistle resulted in a bit of a melee round the Hawks net with the result that four players, two from each side were sent for early showers. The Barons then rounded off the scoring with a pair of goals from Tom Soar and a single from Paul Stanley to finish off a comfortable win and secure their first significant silverware since the 2014-15 Laidler Winning Season.

The Barons are back on home ice this Sunday in league action against Sheffield’s Sutton Sting. The Barons will be keen to make amends for a slip up last month which saw points dropped against the Sting and this time bring home the win. Face-off 5:30pm.

Barons Man of the Match Sam Hewitt

Hawks Man of the Match Ethan Mayoh