NORTON SHORES – If he keeps scoring like this, Mona Shores forward Trent Benedict could easily outdo his eye-opening sophomore season, when he tallied 20 goals.

And if the Mona Shores Sailors keeps dominating like this, they might end up eclipsing last year’s impressive 14-3-1 record.

Benedict, a junior, opened his season in fine form on Saturday, scoring a three-goal hat trick to lead Mona Shores to an easy 8-0 victory over rival Reeths-Puffer in the Sailors’ first game of the season.

The game ended in the third period after the final Sailor goal invoked the eight-goal mercy rule.

The outcome doesn’t mean Reeths-Puffer is a bad team this season, by any means. The Rockets opened their schedule on Friday and beat Kenowa Hills 5-2. But Mona Shores expects to be exceptionally good this season, and Saturday provided the first bit of evidence.

“On paper we’re pretty good, but we still have to play the games, and today we did pretty good,” said Mona Shores Coach Chris Benedict, whose team won a conference title and advanced to the regional finals last season. “I’m just proud of my guys for executing the right way and getting shots to the net.”

The coach gave a nod to Trent Benedict – who also happens to be his son – for opening the year with three big goals.

“He was flying out there,” Coach Benedict said. “He always shoots well in practice, but that doesn’t always equate to games. I thought his third goal today was nice.”

Trent said he is planning on being more productive this season, because the Sailors will play more games. Last year’s schedule was shorter due to COVID.

“I wasn’t planning on that, but it felt good, for sure,” he said about his hat trick. “We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but it was a good start.”

The Sailors outplayed the Rockets in every phase of the game, and had a huge 43-13 advantage in shots on goal.

The only down side the season opener for the Sailors were the penalties – and there were a lot of them. The Sailors were whistled for 10 infractions and 20 minutes in the penalty box.

The Sailors held the Rockets scoreless on nine power play opportunities, so the penalty kill unit did well. But Coach Benedict knows the team won’t be able to get away with that every game.

“It’s super frustrating,” Coach Benedict said about the penalties. “We tell the guys, the only ones who can beat us is ourselves, and that showed a little bit today – a lot of bit, actually. Unfortunately that’s been our MO at the start of every season. There have always been a lot of penalties, and then we clean it up. I would like to see that not take as long this year,

“Against better teams, the penalty trouble will get us in trouble.”

Mona Shores collected goals from Ty Langlois, Benedict and Diego Pena in the first period, and led 3-0 heading into the second.

The Sailors tacked on four more goals in the second period, with two tallies from Benedict and one apiece from Landon Taylor and Isaac Habetler.

The final goal came with 3:17 left in the third period, when Jake Nanna found the net to invoke the mercy rule.

Mona Shores goalie Carter Dethloff stopped 13 shots to collect the shutout.