The Chargers went trekking to Grosse Pointe Woods to face off against a solid University Liggett Knights (7-4-1) squad last night. Liggett, a program who competes in the Metro League-East and most notable for their 2012 State Championship shutout win over Houghton.

Senior netminder Maksim Johns (.907 save %) of the Knights had a busy evening facing over 40 shots from the Chargers. The first puck to see the back of the net came at 12:45 of the first period. Senior captain Nolan Berner led senior captain Brendan Sly, who raced through the neutral zone to grab the dime. Sly’s shot deflected off John’s blocker into the twine. The Chargers physical presence proved to be superior to the Knights all evening, highlighted by the junior Brody Neeland’s marque open ice crushing hit. At 7:30, the Chargers goaltender Blake Zloto stuffed the Knights breakaway attempt. Then again, Zloto displayed a nice extra effort sprawling stick save to keep the Knights off the board.

Moments into the second period, the Chargers Berner entered the Knight zone on the left side, and sniped a long range, textbook wrister over the netminder’s trapper to make it 2-0. At the 6:28 mark, with one second left on the clock for the man advantage, the Chargers executed on their third power play attempt. Sophomore Ayden Cook dished it off to Caleb Doll, who then threaded the needle to Sly between the hash marks (bumper). Sly answered again, kicking the biscuit to his tape and then fired it between the leg pads of John’s for his 5th power play goal of the year. The Chargers stalwart penalty kill unit exhausted the fourth Knight opportunity early into the third period. Unfortunately, at even strength, the Knight forward Griffin Marchal was left alone out front to spoil the Zloto shutout. With the Knights back against the wall, they pulled their netminder. With 21 seconds left, sophomores Cook and Bendall had their own last minute strategy. Cook hustled to capture the loose puck, connected with Bendall as he dropped it into the empty net.

Zloto earned his 7th win in net as Powers improved to 9-4 at the midpoint of the season.

Final: Powers 4 Liggett 1

Next game: Saturday, Jan 13th v Detroit Country Day - 3pm at Flint Iceland arena

(skate with the players post game)