The Kenowa Hills hockey team has certainly seen enough of Reeths-Puffer’s Tyler Tindall.
The sophomore forward lit up the scoreboard again on Thursday, posting four goals in the Rockets’ 7-4 victory over the Knights at Muskegon’s Trinity Health Arena.
Tindall’s performance comes a few weeks after he scored four goals against – you guessed it – Kenowa Hills – in a come-from-behind Rocket victory.
It also comes two days after Tindall scored the winning goal in overtime in a come-from-behind win over Grand Rapids Northview.
“Tindall continues to wow the coaches,” said R-P head coach Ryan Martin. “He finds himself in very dangerous areas and is able to capitalize. It’s not by accident or luck. He works very hard away from the puck and is able to elude defenders and find openings.
“A ton of credit goes to his whole line. Jaxon Stone and Eli Cuti, as well as our defensemen, always seem to know where Tyler is going to be or find him with beautiful passes that make life a little easier for him.”
The Rockets took control right away, grabbing a 3-1 lead after one period on goals by Connor Stawski (assisted by Isaiah Winters), Tindall (assisted by Stawski) and Eli Cuti (assisted by Tindall and Jaxon Stone).
Tindall added his second goal early in the second period, with assists from Stone and Stawski. Just 30 seconds later, Avery Freeland scored a backhanded goal after taking a nice pass on a 2-on-1 break from Carson Harwood, making the score 5-1. Kenowa Hills answered with a goal, then Tindall completed his hat trick with his third goal, assisted by Harwood.
The Knights opened the scoring the third period, Tindall added his fourth goal with an unassisted tally, then Kenowa Hills collected one more goal.
R-P goalie Isaiah Van Noord had his second straight strong performance, stopping 35 of 39 shots in the victory.
“Our starts have been slow, so we really put a ton of emphasis on starting fast tonight,” Martin said. “We were able to score on an early power play and score twice more late in the first period. We carried over our fast start emphasis into the second period and were able to score two goals just 30 seconds apart, and that was big.”
The Rockets are now 8-4 on the season after starting out 0-2.
