Tampa Bay Juniors - USPHL

Wesley Chapel, FL - The Tampa Bay Juniors get the weekend sweep over the Florida Jr. Blades.

Connor Nelson opened the scoring just 2:31 into Friday’s premier contest. Beau Courneya’s hard forecheck caused a turnover leading to a 2 on 1 for Nelson and Jonah Mortenson. Nelson’s attempted pass deflected between the legs of Blades goalie Tyler Ledoux. Just 40 seconds later, Eliot Bergbauer would net his second of the season on a passing play from Adam Custable and Jonah Mortenson. The Blades found the back of the net halfway through the opening period off a broken face-off play.

Jonah Mortenson’s one timer on the 5 on 3 advantage would restore TBJ’s lead to 2 in the second period. Beau Courneya collected his 22nd goal of the year on a beautiful passing play from Connor Nelson and Ryan Bahula. The Blades displayed excellent perseverance as they would tally 3 goals in the middle to late stages of the period to even things at 4 a piece. Justin Walker scored the game winner with just under a minute to go as he ripped a shot over the glove from the right face-off circle.

___________________

Elite opened the weekend series with a decisive 8-3 victory over the Blades. TBJ saw balanced scoring from all 4 lines, and 2 defenseman. Jake Duhaime and Jordan Campo lead the way with 3 points a piece; while Nate Furuseth, Bryson Uhrig, Dawid Wawrzkiewicz, Philip Wsol, and Cooper Hunt each tallied 2 points.

Charles Garon picked up his 12th victory of the year while turning aside 32 of 35 shots.

_______________________

Saturday’s premier contest was a tight checking, hard-fought game for the full 60 minutes. Tim Ruf would score the only goal necessary to secure the win, just 3:13 into the game. Artjoms Kadnikovs added an insurance tally halfway through the second period while Onni Taskila turned away all 22 shots he saw, for his 3rd shutout of the 2022 portion of the season.

____________________

TBJ Elite wrapped up the organizational sweep with a hard-fought 3-2 win.

TBJ came back twice in the game, starting with Dawid Wawrzkiewicz short handed goal off a beautiful pass from Nate Furuseth. Philip Wsol also found an equalizer off his own rebound in the slot. With 10 minutes left in a 2-2 game Andrew Lewis buried the eventual game winner off a nice passing play from Tyler MacIndoe and Tyler Cullen.

TBJ will play a 3 game series at home against Atlanta to wrap up the remainder of the 2021-2022 regular season.

Photo by: Alex Walworth