Billingham Stars got the win they needed to stay second in the table after a surprisingly lacklustre 3-1 National League (North) Moralee Division One won over Sheffield Spartans at the Forum.
The Ultimate Windows-sponsored Stars were without Canadian top scorer Thomas Stuart-Dant with a wrist injury, and were further depleted by the withdrawal of James Moss and Andy Munroe.
The visitors started the game full of intent, trying to inject some aggression, but the Stars did not rise to the bait.
It took a comedy of errors in the Sheffield zone to gift Billingham the opener – netminder Brandon Stones spilling a routine catch and defenceman Dave Pyatt missing the clearance for Chris Sykes to pick up with an open goal in front of him in the ninth minute.
Less than two minutes later Michael Elder doubled the lead when he was given time and space by the defence to let fly from the face off circle.
A great snap glove save from goaltender James Flavell in the 15th minute retained the two-goal cushion going into the interval, but it was no less than the Teessiders deserved.
An early chance to extend the lead fell to Tom Keeley in the 23rd minute, but the defenceman fanned on the shot and Stones remained untroubled.
A purple patch from the visitors just before the half-way mark roused the hosts who went close themselves with a one-time effort from Elder well saved by Stones and an Andy Finn slap from the blue line that pinged the post.
Billingham eventually got the breakthrough with a well-worked powerplay goal in the 34th minute, man-of-the-match Elder putting away his second of the evening following some lovely tip passing around the net from the special play unit.
As expected the visitors came out for the final session looking hungrier in an attempt to get something out of the game.
They began to put more shots on Flavell, although they almost paid for pushing forward when a mistake by Morris on his own blue line in the 50th minutet let in Sykes, but the Stars winger put his effort just wide.
Flavell pulled off a point-blank save from Morris but the pressure eventually when Knell put away a perfect lay-back from Stuart Brittle to put the visitors on the score sheet.
Despite a late flurry of shots, Flavell was not too troubled in the closing minutes and Knell’s effort turned out to be a consolation goal.
Stars director of coaching Terry Ward admitted he had expected more from Sheffield, saying: “It was a surprisingly run of the mill game because Sheffield are normally a good outfit who work really hard, a non-stop grinding team, but they were pretty flat.
“It started off very physical, they came in and tried to boss us around a bit but we were determined that wasn’t going to happen.
“From the time the second goal went in they just seemed to die. We got three goals, it was pretty comfortable and we just played the game out. We knew they weren’t going to come at us so we played for the result.”
Next up the Stars visit Sutton Sting on Sunday.
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