| HAMPTON,
Va. - The Cincinnati Stingers suffered their first ever defeat Sunday in in an exhibition
game against guess who ? Answer: The Hampton Gulls, Cincy's own farm team. Decidedly more
aggressive, the Gulls jumped off to a 2-0 lead and maintained the momentum right down to
the final goal in downing the major leaguers, 7-5. That's what came of nearly two weeks in
a combined training camp which was supposed to divide the big leaguers from the minor
leaguers. Though it was just an exhibition, you'd have thought the Stingers had just lost
the Avco Cup. The locker room resounded with moans. "We
didn't play to half of our potential," said center Dennis Sobchuk who had two assists
in the game. "We took the whole thing too lightly. It's hard to come down hard on a
guy you've been living with for 10 days," pointed out defenseman Dale Smedsmo, who
scored one of Stingers goals. "That team could beat the Canadiens," inserted
John Hughes. "The only difference between them and us is we're more consistent. They
can come along one night and beat anybody."
Defenseman Dave Inkpen had a goal and an assist on the night, his
first points of the season, but he complained, "I can't feel good about it when we
don't win. The trouble was we were behind all night," Inkpen continued. "and so
we were gambling a lot. They never played down at our end. They kept scoring coming out of
our end."
The Gulls went ahead, 2-0, in the first period on goals by Ron
Morgan and Pat Donnelly, both when the Stingers were short one man. Smedsmo came back with
goal for Cincinnati, just poking the puck into the net after a good pass from Dennis
Sobchuk. With the Stingers short-handed again, Hampton's Larry Billows made it, 3-1 early
in the second period. Inkpen came back this time, knocking in Claude Larose's rebound. Don
O"Donohue then scored for the Gulls to make it, 4-2 after two periods.
In the third, Donnelly scored his second goal of the night on Claude
Chartre's third assist and suddenly Cincy was down by three. But Steve Andrascik narrowed
it to two with an Inkpen assisted goal just 29 seconds later. Then Lorne Rombough came
back for the Gulls to score the key goal making it 6-3 and stopping the Stingers'
momentum.
Gary Veneruzzo reciprocated for Cincinnati and then Dudley scored to
rally the Stingers within one point, but time was running out. The Stingers were forced to
pull their goalie in a last ditch effort to tie it up and Hampton's O'Donohue stole the
open net with 14 seconds left to seal the game. Hampton's first four goals were against
Stingers Serge Aubry who had been unscored upon until then. The last three were against
rookie Norm Lapointe.
The loss followed two encouraging pre-season victories for the
Stingers, one over the Avco Cup finalists Quebec Nordiques last week. "When we play
Quebec, that's a team we've got to beat," says Sobchuk, trying to explain the
incongruity of Sunday's disaster, "I guess we thought we didn't have to prove
anything against Hampton." The two teams play again Tuesday and Sobchuk promises,
"We won't feel the same way then." |
