Adrian Osborne is about to need a new home for his favorite activity.
Since the end of last season Osborne, a Fox Valley Hawks forward from Batavia, has been holed up in his basement with a bucket of pucks shooting them into a net to work on his accuracy.
"But now my parents are having the basement re-done. So, I will be having to look for a different place to practice," Osborne said. “I have been trying to work on my accuracy because I have a tendency for whatever reason, to shoot pucks off target. I have gotten better though."
His practice did pay off Oct. 14 at the West Meadows Ice Arena in Rolling Meadows where the Hawks defeated the District 211 Chiefs 3-1.
“We were disappointed we did not score more than three goals tonight,” Osborne said. “When we played Warren earlier in the week we scored five goals against them. And they were the hardest team we have faced so far this year. So, we should have scored more tonight. Our No. 1 thing right now for us is our speed to the corners. We are much faster there than other teams.”
Osborne knew the game would be tough for the Hawks knowing most of the players were "pretty much gassed from the weekend."
“For me, I like playing the kind of games where we are on the ice on a Saturday during the game,” he said. “Where I can just get up on a Saturday morning drink a bottle of water and then go to the rink and just play.”
After a scoreless first period the Hawks (3-1-1) got going when forward John Ambrogio from Batavia scored at the 10:52 mark to make it 1-0. The lead would not last through the second period. John Sas beat Hawks goaltender Nick Csekme (St.Charles North) from in close with 3:40 left to play to tie it 1-1.
The third period saw the Hawks play their best hockey of the night. Ambrogio scored his second goal of the game with 8:17 left when he took a pass from line mate Danny Shaughnessy and score to make it 2-1. The Hawks kept the pressure on the Chiefs for the remainder of the game and netted a third goal with 10 seconds remain as Osborne scored off a pass from Chris White.
“One of things which has also helped me this year is doing better at breaking out of my zone,” Osborne said. “I have been getting better at making passes to my teammates off the boards.”