Northstars continue to charge forward

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The Newcastle Northstars 3 defeated the Central Coast Rhinos 0 on Sunday night at Hunter Ice Skating Stadium.
 
A shutout win for Charlie Smart, helped secure the three points for Newcastle, giving them a 5 point buffer between the Canberra Brave. “That’s the best game I’ve seen Charlie play for the Northstars, he was incredible and deserved the shutout,” shared captain Liam Manwarring.
 
With goals from Francis Drolet and Daniel Berno halfway through the first period, the home team were ahead 2-0 going into the break.
 
A scoreless second period saw the Northstars hold their lead.
 
The game remained in the favour of the home team until Patrick Nadin scored for Newcastle with just under 5mins remaining in the third period.
 
Reflecting on the game and what’s ahead, Manwarring shared, “I think we played, for the most part, very well. They’ve got a good goalie, but every team we come up against from now on is going to have a good goal tender.”
 
“These are the times you have to embrace and enjoy because in five weeks in Melbourne it can go bang, bang bang and it’s all over and then you’re in December and you can’t wait to get back.”
 
“Our destiny is all in our hands and it’s decided by no one else but us and that’s dedication and I put that down to the hard work we’ve done so far this year.”
 
Head Coach Kevin Noble shared his thoughts about what it’s going to take to lift the cup, “The reality of the situation is we have to take care of our business and keep getting our game in the right spot and the detail and the structure and for the most part we did that tonight.”
 
“We’ve done our work to give ourselves the ability to hold all the cards in our hands.”
 
“Nobody wants it easy and I thought tonight the Rhinos did a good job of coming and playing hard, giving us a good hockey game and we had to fight through and find a way, and I thought we did that.”
 
Next Sunday August 4^th, the Northstars head to Erina to take on the Central Coast Rhinos again, Noble shared, “We’ll keep going with our process here and worry about ourselves now. That’s all we can do, we’ve got to take care of our business and focus on the next weekend.”