Anna Johnson of Lady Rocket basketball

The Rockets of Westwood welcomed the Rockets of Forrest to the Joel Vinson Gym on Thursday night. An injury depleted Lady Rockets team fell to Forrest 30 to 15. The Westwood boys came up short in a double overtime thriller 58 to 57.
Despite 5 Westwood girls unavailable due to injury, the Lady Rockets opened the game with a swarming half court defense to stifle Forrest in the first quarter. After holding Forrest to 4 points in the 1st quarter, Westwood entered the 2nd quarter tied with conference leading Forrest. The visiting Lady Rockets were able to outscore Westwood 11 to 2 in the 2nd quarter to open up a lead that Westwood could not overcome. From that point, the depth of Forrest was more than enough to hold off a scrappy Lady Rocket team and secure the season sweep over Westwood. Anna Johnson and Haidyn Campbell led Westwood in scoring as each netted 4 points.

Wyatt Nugent of Westwood basketball

In a boys game that featured more than 50 free throw attempts, the Westwood Rockets dropped a physical double overtime contest with Forrest to end with a season split with the Rockets from Chapel Hill. A driving basket by John Dobson with 12 seconds remaining in regulation capped off Westwood’s rally from an 8 point 4th quarter deficit to send the game to overtime. In the first overtime, Cruz Pitsinos hit a 3 point basket as the horn sounded to tie the game and force a 2nd overtime. Four Rockets ended up fouling out as Forrest was able to hold off Westwood in the 2nd overtime period. Trenton Thompson was the leading scorer as he netted 17 points; Pitsinos finished the game with 15 points. Wyatt Nugent had 7 points, including 5 in the last 2 minutes of regulation.
Westwood will travel to Eagleville on Monday night for a conference doubleheader with the Eagles. The girls’ game will tip off at 6 PM.

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Pontus Aberg netted his first NHL goal and James Neal extended his scoring streak as the Nashville Predators defeated the Ottawa Senators 5-1 on Thursday night at Canadian Tire Centre. The win improves Nashville’s record to 7-6-3 overall and gives them points in seven of their last eight outings.

Goaltender Pekka Rinne returned to the Predators lineup after missing one game with a lower-body injury, stopping all but one of the 31 shots he faced.

After a loss in Toronto that snapped their three-game win streak, Nashville found a way to get back on the right side of the ledger once more, a complete effort from start to finish.

“I thought we were good from start to finish, but especially at the start,” Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. “We needed to come out and make sure we were road ready, and I thought our guys did an excellent job at that.”

In his third NHL game – excluding two playoff contests in 2016 – forward Pontus Aberg found the back of the net for his first career goal in the League.

The 23-year-old had been a healthy scratch for the past two contests after being recalled on Nov. 8. On Thursday night against the Senators, Aberg entered the offensive zone all alone and fired a wrister from the face-off dot past Mike Condon for goal No. 1 of his career.

“I almost got an apple [assist] on that play, so I remember it really well,” goaltender Pekka Rinne quipped. “It’s huge, and a huge goal for us too, the third goal, and it gave us a little bit of leeway in the game. But it’s always a special thing when guys score their first NHL goals, and even now after the game, he was pretty pumped up. It’s a big moment.”

Before spending his last 353 games with Nashville, Preds Captain Mike Fisher spent 675 contests with the Senators. A second-round pick in 1998 by the Sens, the forward said returning to Canada’s capital is always one of the first dates he circles after the NHL schedule is released.

The Predators honored Fisher for logging 1,000 games in the NHL earlier this year in March, and the Sens elected to do the same in his first game back in Ottawa since earning the milestone.

In a pregame ceremony, former Sens Captain Daniel Alfredsson was joined by several current Ottawa players at center ice for a presentation of a painting depicting Fisher’s 1,000 games in the NHL. Former Sens defenseman Chris Phillips also wished the grateful Fisher congrats via a video message on the Canadian Tire Centre video board.

“That was pretty special to have that,” Fisher said. “Just the organization to do that and those guys to do that in front of the fans, it was something I’ll never forget and that meant a lot.”

It was only one game, but the recently named NHL Third Star of the Week was missed during his two-day absence due to a lower-body injury. Pekka Rinne was back in the Predators net for stop No. 2 of the team’s three-game road trip, and frankly, didn’t miss a beat.

“The way he controls the game and makes big saves, he’s so calm back there tonight,” Fisher said of his goaltender. “He was unbelieveable.”

The Predators spent the week prior expressing how they feed of the high-quality play of their No. 1 netminder,and following a season sweep of the Senators, they had the chance to do so again.

With the 30-save win, Rinne improved to 4-0-0 in his last four starts with a .974 save percentage and 0.75 goals-against average, giving up one goal or less in each of them.

“You have to feel comfortable the way we’re playing right now,” Rinne said. “The week we had at home, it was a great week for us, and all around, we just have to feel good about ourselves and the way we’re playing. It’s all about confidence, especially when you play on the road; that’s when you measure your confidence for sure.

Notes:

James Neal’s six-game scoring streak has tied a Nashville franchise record. Filip Forsberg, Patric Hornqvist, Alexander Radulov and J-P Dumont also tallied in six straight with the Predators. It’s also a career-high for Neal, who had already tied his previous record coming into Thursday night.

“Hottest player in the league right now,” Aberg said of Neal. “He’s been doing really good, and the guy can shoot it, so he’s just going to keep doing that.”

The Predators registered a season-high 40 shots on goal on Tuesday against Ottawa.

Defenseman Ryan Ellis has scored three goals in a five-game period for the first time in his career.

The Preds conclude their three-game road trip on Saturday night in St. Louis to face the Blues before returning home on Monday to host Tampa Bay.  Faceoff is at 7 PM and you can hear the broadcast here on Thunder Radio as part of the Nashville Predators Radio Network.