Adrian Stubberfield and Griffin Robinson each scored two goals for the Chatham Maroons Sunday night.
The Maroons used that potent offence to beat the Leamington Flyers 7-2 at Memorial Arena. The third-place Maroons gained two points on both the Flyers and the first-place London Nationals, who lost Sunday afternoon. Chatham now had 49 points, three behind Leamington.
Stubberfield, who got his first two junior-B goals Sunday night, knew the matchup against Leamington would be key.
"I heard they were a pretty good team and they've got a pretty good goalie," said Stubberfield. "It's just nice to come out here with the guys, get a good win and get my first goal in the league, so it was a pretty good night."
Chatham put up a pair of goals in the first period. Maddux Rychel scored unassisted at 5:55, and Dane Johnstone doubled the score on the power play a little over six minutes later.
Wyatt O'Neil put Leamington on the board with a score at 3:27 of the middle frame, then Chatham opened up with three straight goals. Stubberfield gave his team the two-goal lead back at 5:12, then Robinson made it 4-1 exactly four minutes later. Justin Badour completed the trio for the Maroons just 20 seconds after that. The Flyers then pulled goalie Zach Borgiel and went with their backup for the night, Nicholas Chenard.
Robinson and Stubberfield both scored their second goals within the first four minutes of the third period. Stubberfield said he wasn't even aware at first that the latter goal was his.
"Fishy [Brett Fisher] just gave me the puck and I didn't think I'd be able to squeeze by the two defenders but I ended up getting there," said Stubberfield. "I shot it on net, it went into the corner. I didn't know I scored."
Rory DeNiro then managed to put up one more score for Leamington.
Tristan Lewis had 33 saves in net for Chatham. Borgiel and Chenard combined for a total of 25 saves for Leamington.
The Flyers next travel to Komoka on Tuesday night. The Maroons are back in action Thursday when they host LaSalle.
---with files from Matt Weverink
