By Matt Stewart

FITCHBURG – The red-hot Lunenburg/Ayer hockey team continued its unbeaten streak in 2010 with a hard fought win over a potent Fitchburg/Monty Tech squad.  It was a defensive stalemate, with superior goaltending on both sides of the puck, through two periods, but the stalemate would be broken by the Lunenburg junior defenseman Shawn Sanford in the third, who scored the lone goal of the game, which lifted the Blue Knights to the 1-0 victory Wednesday afternoon at Fitchburg State College’s Wallace Civic Center.  Lunenburg goalie Patrick Colleton had an outstanding game and earned the shut out.

“(Colleton’s) been outstanding for us all year,” Lunenburg head coach Eric Short said.  “He’s one of the big reasons why we’ve gone to the next level.  He’s been playing outstanding and today was a picture perfect game, we didn’t give up any goals, luckily we got the bounce, and we were able to squeeze one by another good goaltender.  My hat goes off tohim too, it was just a good shot by one of my defenseman.”

Colleton put forth a 23 save performance, in the winning effort.  One of the biggest saves of the net, came on the penalty kill right after Lunenburg had scored, when Fitchburg’s Cody Conrad put a point blank backhander on net that was turned away by Colleton.  Another key save in the game came with 40 seconds left, after the Raiders had pulled their goalie, when Fitchburg’s Bret Hagberg drilled a slapshot from the point that was redirected by Conrad but covered up by Colleton.

“(Colleton’s) played all our big games,” Short said.  “Definitely in that third period they had some great opportunities, but he just held the fort.”

It seemed as though the game was headed towards a 0-0 tie, but with 13:07 remaining in the game Sanford skated into the high slot, wound up, and rocketed a shot past the Fitchburg netminder glove side for the game winning goal.

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