Pirates open pre-season with win against Raiders

During the 2009-10 pre-season, The Picton Pirates were forced to wait until their fifth exhibition game of the season before registering their first win.
This season, the Pirates started the pre-season off on the right foot, making short work of the understaffed Napanee Raiders 5-2 Thursday evening.
The Pirates were paced on offence by Tweed’s Dylan Murray, who fired home Picton’s first goals.
“For a small guy, he’s everywhere out there and he’s not afraid of taking a hit to make a play,” Pirates GM Jason Parks said.
Picton found itself down a goal in the first period when Murray drove to the net hard and smartly tipped in a David Norris feed past Joey Scott at 6:53.
Down a goal again in the second, Murray slipped a powerplay marker through the wickets of Mike McGrath to tie up the score. Seconds later, it was Corey Prince tipping home the eventual game winner on a Zac Brant blast from the point.
In the third, Brant made it 4-2 Picton with another point shot and John Sweet closed out the scoring with a man advantage goal late in the contest.
After the game, Parks had plenty of praise for Prince Edward County Minor Hockey products Prince and Brant.
“Both of them and Nolan Van Vlack worked hard and made some nice things happen,” Parks said.
In the nets for Picton, Ricky Holland of Bloomfield was sensational in the second, stopping Napanee several times.
“They were on the door step and drving hard to the net, but he just said no,” Parks said. “It’s encouraging because we have Holland pegged to be our third goalie this season when he’s playing for the Midget County Kings.”
The preseason gets busy in a hurray for the Pirates as they host the Port Hope Panthers on Thursday evening at 7:30 and then take part in the special Belleville Bulls Junior Hockey Festival on Sunday at the Yardmen Arena with an exhibition game against the Napanee Raiders at 10:45 am.