The Tahoe Grizzlies Bantams (ages 13 and 14) hosted the undefeated Santa Rosa Flyers last weekend in a back-to-back weekend series. The Grizzlies hadn’t played in a month and the rust showed early in Saturday’s contest.

After killing off a couple Flyer power plays, the Flyers struck for three goals in the span of 3 minutes and tallied a fourth with just more than three minutes to play in the first period.

The Grizzlies finally got their skates under them and A.J. Marino of South Lake Tahoe netted the first goal of the game. The Grizzlies played the Flyers even for the rest of the game. Then Marino closed the gap to 4-2 with his second goal early in the third period.

However, the game would end with the Grizzlies on the short end of the 4-2 score.

Sunday morning found the Grizzlies coming out flying. After a scoreless first period, Noah Paul of South Lake Tahoe gave the Grizzlies the lead with a wrist shot on the power play early in the second period. Paul struck again on a feed from Doug Knudsen with less than a minute to play in the period for a 2-0 Grizzlies lead. That was short lived as the Flyers’ Christian Ott scored with just 26 seconds remaining.

The third period was a tight, hard checking contest until Flyers Shawn Pabros equalized the score on the power play midway through the period. That’s the way the game ended.

But the Grizzlies are a confident team having played even with the first place Flyers for five out of six periods during the weekend.

Pee Wees (ages 11-13)

The Pee Wees came out of the gate at their home opener last weekend with decisive wins against the San Francisco Saber Cats. On Nov. 12 they won 11-3 with multiple players scoring. Mickey Sullivan, No. 17 of South Lake Tahoe, earned a hat trick with three goals in this first game. On Sunday morning the Grizzlies triumphed again, winning 7 -3. Edward Parkhill, No. 17 of Incline Village, had three assists in this powerful team performance.

Squirts (ages 9-10)

The Grizzly Squirts came out of the gate fast Saturday against the Cupertino Cougars. Tahoe quickly scored four goals in the first two periods. It wasn’t until the third period that the Cougars finally got on the board with one goal. It was too little, too late and they couldn’t mount a rally against the Grizzlies.

Quinn Proctor, No. 2 from South Lake Tahoe and a first-year Squirt, earned his first two goals of the season, and had two assists for four points. Kevin Lehmann, No. 5, and Jaxon Kennedy, No. 3, both from South Lake Tahoe and second year Squirts, had two goals apiece, and Tucker Cannon, No. 7, from South Lake Tahoe and also a second-year Squirt, had one goal to bring the final score to 7-1, Grizzlies win.

On Sunday, Cannon again lead the Grizzlies to another win against the Cupertino Cougars with his first hat trick (three goals scored in one game). Cannon scored one goal in each period. First-year Squirt Zachary Calderon, No. 21 from South Lake Tahoe, added two goals, and Proctor, Kevin Lehmann, No. 5, each contributed one goal. Johnny Ilvento, No. 11 and from South Lake Tahoe, added a goal and two assists to bring the final score to 8-2, Grizzlies win.