AJ Rosales (18) and Riley Hoernschemeyer converge on the puck Thursday night.

BY ED WRIGHT
March 5, 2010, 1:05 p.m.

  Despite a spirited, 45-minute effort, Canton's hockey season was derailed by Farmington Thursday night, 7-0, in a Division 2 pre-Regional contest at the Farmington Hills Ice Arena.

  The season-ending setback dropped Canton to 13-11-2. Farmington advanced to Saturday's Regional game against Trenton with an 18-5-2 mark.

  The tightly contested first period ended with the host Falcons clinging to a 1-0 lead, courtesy of Kraig Andrews' goal off a rebound 12:41 into the game.

  Garrett Bryden nearly notched a game-tying goal with 25.1 seconds left in the opening stanza. The junior defenseman secured a dead-on pass from Phillip Baciak just inside the blue line, but his break-away effort was thwarted when he was hooked by a Farmington player.

  Thanks to back-to-back stellar saves from sophomore net-minder Spencer Craig, the Chiefs subdued a 79-second five-on-three Farmington advantage early in the second period.

  Chief defenseman Kyle Korte helped keep the score close at the eight-minute mark when he closed fast on Farmington's Mitch Hall, who had his sites set on a loose puck near the top of the left face-off circle.

  Twenty-nine seconds later, the Falcons doubled their lead when Zach Massa slid a thread-the-needle pass to Hall, who flipped the puck top shelf past Craig.

  The Chiefs' hopes of moving on received a crushing blow with 3:23 left in the second period when Andrews slid a pass in front to a hard-charging Ethan Range, who back-handed a high flip into the back of the net to give his team a 3-0 edge.

  Korte came within inches of reviving his team's chances 10 seconds into the third period, but his whistling slapshot dinged the right post. Twenty seconds later, Rosales tried to stuff the puck past Falcon goalie Tim Rogers, but the junior came up big, just like he did all night.

  Range completed a natural hat trick a short time later, making it 4-0 with 13:50 to play when he flipped the puck over Craig's shoulder (from Andrews and Matt Gutknecht) and 5-0 with at the 9:19 mark when he re-directed an Erik Scott shot past Canton back-up goalie Ryan Bazner.

  Farmington's final two goals were tallied by Nick Woods and Andrews in the game's final 1:25.

  The Falcons outshot the Chiefs, 31-18. Shots on goal were relatively close until the third period when Farmington outfired their visitors, 15-4.