REIGN FINAL – Gulls 3, Reign 1 – Hajt, Sutter

The San Diego Gulls (9-9-1-0) scored the first three goals to build an early lead and earned their first win of the season over the Ontario Reign (13-5-0-1) in the teams’ fourth meeting by a score of 3-1 Saturday night at Pechanga Arena.

Ontario allowed a season-low 14 shots to the Gulls in defeat, but defender Helge Grans was the lone Reign skater to find the back of the net in the contest. San Diego goaltender Olle Eriksson Ek secured the win for the home team with 26 saves.

BOX SCORE

More from Reign Assistant Coach Chris Hajt and captain Brett Sutter below.

Ontario outshot San Diego 11-4 in the first 20 minutes but were unable to get on the scoreboard in the opening period. The Gulls capitalized on a 2-on-1 to take a 1-0 lead on a shot by Brayden Tracey at 17:08 of the frame.

Hunter Drew added on with a power play goal just 2:49 into the second and Brogan Rafferty later made it 3-0 in favor of San Diego at 11:14.

The Reign showed life before the end of the middle frame and cut the Gulls’ lead down to 3-1 when Grans scored his third goal of the season at 17:19. Grans crashed the net and shot home a loose puck at the right side of the cage. His strike came with assists to defender Christian Wolanin and forward TJ Tynan.

Despite outshooting the Gulls 12-2 in the final 20 minutes, Ontario was unable to get any closer on the scoreboard. That included time on a power play with less than five minutes remaining after an interference penalty to San Diego’s Greg Pateryn. Once the penalty had expired, Ontario pulled goaltender Garret Sparks in favor of an extra attacker, but once again was unable to solve Eriksson Ek.

Drew’s power play goal was the lone man-advantage tally of the contest, as San Diego finished 1-for-2 on the power play while the Reign were 0-for-4.

Ontario returns to action at Toyota Arena next week when they host the San Jose Barracuda on Friday night at 7 p.m. and the Tucson Roadrunners on Saturday at 6 p.m.

Chris Hajt
On his team’s defensive performance, allowing just 14 shots in the game
There was some good plays around our net against a team that goes hard to the net and we knew that coming in, they grind down there and we limited some opportunities but ultimately, they ended up getting three and we got one.

On the team’s chances on the power play that were unsuccessful
Yeah there were some opportunities that rolled on our stick or we didn’t bear down on. Quinton at the end hit a post on it, it’s shot volume, it’s making sure that we get second and third opportunities on shots going to the net.

On his team’s overall defense during the weekend series
An important part of our game is the play without the puck, making sure we have an aggressive mindset to what we’re doing on our tracking and coming back into our zone and then ultimately trying to get the puck back as quickly as we can and go the other way. There’s definitely positive steps and there’s things we have to work on too.

Brett Sutter