Solway Defeated in Shoot-Out Success for the Seahawks
Hull Reckitt Seahawks v Solway Sharks – 09/03/2025
Until Owen Sobchak’s game-winning penalty shot on Sunday, the greatest shot taken to defeat a shark probably belonged to Roy Scheider in Jaws.
Until that moment, much like the 1975 blockbuster, the inhabitants of a coastal settlement had been terrorised – only this time it was at a packed Hull Arena, and it was the Solway Sharks setting nerves a jangle as they ran the Hull Reckitt Seahawks all the way in an important game for the Scottish side as they continue their pursuit of a playoff berth.
With the boat sinking (sorry, I am persisting with this tortured metaphor), the character of the Seahawks came to the fore and ultimately it secured them victory in a thrilling 6-5 shootout win to cap off another weekend where the team was short benched, battered and bruised.
It started in Leeds; with the welcome news that Lee Bonner would return to the ice following a four-game suspension. However, the Seahawks were still without key parts of their defence, with Dave Phillips and Tom Stubley still missing through injury and with Declan Jones joining them on the sidelines.
The Leeds Knights are still in the hunt for the Planet Ice NIHL National Division title and made light work of the Hull, as they took a 3-0 lead into the first period intermission thanks to two goals from Matt Barron, sandwiching a marker from Kieran Brown.
Into the second period, Hull finally got off-the-mark, at 26:21, with skipper Bobby Chamberlain pouncing on a rebound off the pads of Sam Gospel after the keeper saved an initial shot from Emil Svec.
The Seahawks then brought the game back to within a single goal, at 30:40, when Canadian forward Johnny Corneil wristed a shot into the roof the net, shorthanded, to make it 3-2.
With the Seahawks chasing an equaliser, the Knights pressed on with Brown scoring his second of the night, at 33:52, and then his hattrick, at 37:18, to take the game into the third period 5-2 to the hosts.
Like the second stanza, the last 20 minutes of the game followed a similar pattern with the Seahawks bringing the game back to within one, thanks to powerplay goals from Declan Balmer, at 44:52, and Svec netting another, backhanded, to make it 5-4.
But Leeds then scored two, with Brown grabbing his fourth of the night, at 54:24, and, not to be outdone, Barron completed his hattrick, at 56:04, to finish the game 7-4 in favour of the Knights.
With the final Yorkshire Derby, away from home, of the regular season complete, the Seahawks headed back along the M62 for a clash with the Sharks.
It didn’t take as long for Hull to score on Sunday, with the recently returned James Spurr netting the opening goal just over 30 seconds into the match, assisted by Johnny Corneil and Lee Haywood.
The Seahawks doubled their lead early in the second period, thanks to a powerplay goal from Bobby Chamberlain, at 23:21, as Solway defenceman Liam Stenton sat a two-minute hooking penalty.
At 29:08, the Sharks halved the deficit through Canadian forward Nolan Gardiner and a Hull Penalty, at 30:30; which saw Callum McGill sent to the penalty box for two minutes for hooking; then presented Solway with the chance to level the game, which they did at 31:36 through Lewis Young.
The Sharks would then find the lead for the first time in the game, at 34:23, as Young grabbed his second of the match.
It looked like the Seahawks would be heading to the locker room behind, but, with four seconds left in the second stanza, Emil Svec netted the equaliser to send the game into the final period 4-4.
Solway regained the lead at the start of the third period, with Gardiner scoring a second goal, this time on the powerplay, as Haywood sat a two-minute tripping penalty, but Svec would tie the match up again, on 49:46, as he converted a penalty shot for the Seahawks after Kell Beattie was adjudged to have hooked his man.
One more flurry of goals would set up overtime and the eventual shootout, with the Sharks going back in front, at 49:53, through Caley Robertson, before Spurr scored his second of the night for Hull, at 52:30, assisted by Corneil, to end the game 5-5.
Overtime couldn’t separate the teams and so it went to penalty shots, and, like Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, two heroes stepped up to defeat the sharks, with Seahawks goalie Jordan McLaughlin denying Torran Anderson, Lewis Young and John Dunbar to set Sobchak up to score the gaming-winning shot.
“We’ve definitely got character, if nothing else,” said Seahawks Head Coach Matty Davies in his post-match interview.
“I don’t think we played particularly well this weekend. Last night, we played a really good team that wanted to win and want to win the league. Tonight, maybe because we have been playing short recently, we struggled. You could see it in our performance and in our rhythm.
“We’ve got some work to do going into the playoffs. We must be more solid, and we must stop going down in games. It is incredibly difficult to keep having to go back to the well every match to get a result.
“However, the lads are playing for the shirt and for each other and, at the moment, that’s all I can really keep asking of them.”
The Seahawks now face the Peterborough Phantoms, a potential playoff opponent, home and away in the penultimate weekend of the regular season.
“They [Peterborough] come good at the right time,” said Davies.
“They are always tough to play at this time of the year and they will be even tougher in the playoffs. However, we are a different team to last year and have proven that we can beat them at our place and at theirs.
“Ultimately, we will have to beat whoever is in front of us if we want to be successful in the post-season.”
By Mark Bateman
