Cole Perfetti scores twice to lead Spirit in 5-4 victory over Owen Sound

Saginaw, MI:

Second year forward Cole Perftetti scored twice, leading the Saginaw Spirit (13-7-1-1) to a 5-4 victory over the Owen Sound Attack at the Dow Event Center in downtown Saginaw last night. 

Saginaw had fallen behind just 20-seconds into the game after Owen Sound forward Aidan Dudas (11) gave the Attack an early 1-0 lead at the :20 mark of the first, but Perfetti (8) answered with his eighth tally of the year, crashing the net to clean up a rebound with a great second effort following shots from Cole Coskey and Reilly Webb to knot the game at 1-goal apiece at 4:46 of the first period.

The Spirit pulled ahead in the opening minute of the second frame when Perfetti (9) roofed a shot over the left shoulder of Owen Sound goal tender Mack Guzda for a 2-1 Saginaw lead with assists coming from Danny Katic and Coskey just :59 seconds into the second period. 

Midway through the second, Saginaw native Mitchell Smith (3) extended the Spirit lead, scoring on a blast from the point with assists from Dalton Duhart and Camaryn Baber for a 3-1 lead at 9:13 of the second period, which led to goals from Ethan Cardwell (his 6th of the year from Blade Jenkins and Ilya Solvyov at 11:15 of the second) and Duhart (his 1st of the year from T-Bone Codd) for a 5-1 Spirit lead at 14:02 of the second period. 

Owen Sound RW Kaleb Pearson (5) scored to cut the Spirit lead to 5-2 at 14:47 of the second period, before 2 Saginaw third period penalties allowed the Attack to creep back into the game with a pair of power play goals in the final 10-minutes when Adam McMaster (7) made it a 5-3 game with a power play goal at 10:47 of the third, while Sergey Popov (5) would wrap up the scoring (5-4) with another power play goal at the 19:33 mark. 

Saginaw goal tender Tristan Lennox stopped 26 of the 30 shots he saw in net for the Spirit, while Guzda  turned away 26 of the 31 shots he would face between the pipes for Owen Sound. 

The Spirit -who are currently in second place (with 28-points) in the Ontario Hockey League's western conference standings- will have one day off before returning to the Dow to host the first place Windsor Spitfires (29-points) for a 7:05 pm face off on Saturday night.

Video of Mitchell Smith (22) scoring from the point against Owen Sound: