The Springfield Spirit took to home ice this past weekend to start their league schedule. In a very successful weekend, the Spirit knocked off Kirkwood #1 twice as well as Chesterfield to kick off a 3-0 start to the season.

In a rematch of the Spirit’s only loss on the year the Kirkwood Stars came to town for a battle in Springfield. Game 1 showed signs of nervousness in both teams as the play was very sloppy at both ends of the ice. Kirkwood struck first off a Spirit turnover only to see Wyatt Wirth answer just a minute later to tie the game at 1. Near the end of the 1st Brooks Kettering took a John Brown pass and ripped a shot over the blocker of the Kirkwood netminder to put Springfield up 2-1. In the 2nd period it was Kirkwood who carried the play and Cooper Pumphrey had to come up big several times making many key stops in a scoreless second period. It could have easily been 5-2 Kirkwood at the end of the 2nd if not for Pumphrey. In the 3rd period Will Peters found a Wyatt Wirth rebound and put the Spirit ahead a little further 3-1 only to see Kirkwood come firing back with 2 goals just over 2 minutes apart to tie the game at 3. Looking like this game was headed for a tie Gavin Loven came to life off a feed from Cal Bussen and put the Spirit ahead 4-3 with 1:41 left. Wirth scored into the empty net with almost no time remaining a Springfield escaped with a 5-3 win. Cooper Pumphrey was huge as he stole the game for the Spirit and won player of the game honors.

In game 2 of the season the Spirit ran into the Chesterfield Falcons in a game that went back and forth before Springfield finally got in control. Less than 30 seconds in the Falcons scored to make it 1-0 and put the Spirit on their heels early. It wasn’t until 1:45 left in the first that Wyatt Wirth found the back of the net off a near impossible angle. Assisting on Wirth’s goal was John Brown and Gavin Loven. In the 2nd period it was Wirth again finding space and beating the Chesterfield goalie off a pass from Cal Bussen. 20 seconds later the Falcons answered with a goal of their own to tie the game at 2. From then on it was all Springfield as Chesterfield got into some penalty trouble and the Spirit took full advantage of it. At the 5:25 mark on the powerplay, Gavin Loven put the Spirit ahead 3-2 off feeds from Wirth and Bussen. With 3:13 remaining in the 2nd period Gage Robb found the back of the net off a feed from Wyatt Wirth. Kurt Buckman was standing in front of the Falcon netminder, providing a perfect screen and the goalie never saw the shot coming. Less than 2 minutes later it would be Robb striking again, following up a Cal Bussen rebound to put the Spirit ahead 5-2. In the 3rd Zahn Werner tallied off a pass from Wirth and Gavin Loven scored an unassisted goal to extend the lead to 7-2. Werner would score again off a Logan Ripper rebound to make it 8-2. The score held up in a big win for the Spirit who started the game slow but came to life in the 2nd period. Gage Robb picked up player of the game honors with his first 2-goal game of his career.

In Game 3 of the weekend Springfield and Kirkwood met again in what would be their last league game of the season. The two teams battled early in a scoreless 1st period. In the second period it was Gavin Loven off a great individual effort putting the Spirit up 1-0. That seemed to wake Kirkwood up as they would score a goal of their own less than 20 seconds later to tie the game 1-1. Near the end of the second Gavin Loven skated in a fired the puck at the Kirkwood goaltender who could not handle the rebound. Picking up the trash was Will Peters to put the Spirit back in front 2-1. In the third period the Spirit and Stars traded chances and once again Cooper Pumphrey rose to the occasion and shut the door before John Brown found Gavin Loven who would extend the lead to 3-1. That was it as Springfield tightened up defensively and swept the season series between them and Kirkwood. Player of the game honors went to Gavin Loven who continues to impress this season.

The Spirit are off for the holiday weekend and return to action on December 3rd and 4th at home to play rival Affton in a 2 game set. They will also play Meramec Kovacs who held the high scoring Spirit scoreless in declaration games skating to a 0-0 tie.

Notes

Springfield’s league record is 3-0-0 and overall record is 13-1-2.
Gavin Loven now has 26 goals on the year in just 16 games.
Cooper Pumphrey for the year sits at a 91.7% save percentage

Season Goal Leaders: Loven-5, Wirth-4, Peters/Robb/Werner-2
Season Assist Leaders: Wirth/Bussen-4, Brown-3
Season Point Leaders: Wirth-8, Loven-7, Bussen-4
Season +/- Leaders: Wirth/Loven- +6, Bussen/Werner- +5

Overall Leaders
Goals: Loven-26, Wirth-13, Werner-10
Assists: Bussen/Wirth-10, Brown-7
Points: Loven-32, Wirth-23, Werner-14
+/-:  Loven- +30, Werner- +28. Bussen/Wirth- +27