Sports · Sault Ste. Marie
Soo Eagles pull away from Elliot Lake 6-3 as Harmon Esch scores twice in the first 28 seconds of the third
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. — The Soo Eagles built a five-goal lead and held off a late push to beat the Elliot Lake Vikings 6-3 on Oct. 17 in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play.
Anthony Mayes opened the scoring shorthanded at 12:41 of the first period, hammering in a feed from Alex Povorozniouk, who extended his point streak to nine games, EUP News reported. Samuel Gold and Jayden Rothmeyer scored in the second for a 3-0 lead.
Harmon Esch then put it away in a hurry, scoring twice in the first 28 seconds of the third period, once off a turnover and once from a sharp angle.
Elliot Lake got on the board when Sloan Kroeker scored his first NOJHL goal on a power play at 7:47 of the third, and Gabriel Clark answered for the Soo with a long shot on a power play of the Eagles’ own. Jayden Becken and Armando Rojo-Bolton scored late for the Vikings, but they got no closer than three. Dalton Hoornstra was in goal for the Soo.
The win followed a 7-4 loss at Hearst. Elite Prospects listed the Eagles at 7-4-1 after the weekend.
Next at home. The Eagles host Elliot Lake again at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, at Pullar Stadium, according to the Sault Ste. Marie CVB calendar.
Sources:
EUP News, “Eagles strike early and hard to take control of Elliot Lake Vikings,” Oct. 18, 2026 (scoring, Povorozniouk streak, goaltender), https://www.eupnews.com/2026/10/eagles-strike-early-and-hard-to-take-control-of-elliot-lake-vikings/
Elite Prospects, Soo Eagles team page (record), https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/3665/soo-eagles
Sault Ste. Marie CVB, “Soo Eagles Hockey Game,” Oct. 31, 2026, https://saultstemarie.com/event/soo-eagles-hockey-game-30/2026-10-31/
Photo: West Point - The U.S. Military Academy, “Mike Santee 6 (5514628649).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), cropped and color-adjusted, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mike_Santee_6_(5514628649).jpg
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