California Patriots close their prelims with win.

CANTON – It was a fairly close to perfect run through the preliminary round of the 2019 Mini Chowder Cup for the California Patriots. They finished their opening games with a record of 3-0-1 following a 5-1 win over Stars Selects on Saturday afternoon at the Canton Ice House.

Two times the Patriots came through in the opening half to start building their cushion. Troy Negus scored his fourth goal in four games, Ian Alonso scored his third goal in four games and goaltender Ryan Piekarski – already with one shutout in the tournament – blanked the Selects over the game’s first 20 minutes. It was 2-0 after one.

Dennis Jardine came through for the Selects at 15:57 to stop the bleeding, but that was not before the Patriots had piled on three more goals to result in the 5-1 final.

A trio of Patriots were credited with multiple points in the contest: Nolan Caffey (2G), Alonso (1G, 1A) and Austin Moline (1G, 1A). Piekarski gave up a goal or less in three of his four appearances thus far in the tournament.

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