Ice X-Men fall to Moncton, defeat Tommies

The X-Men travelled to New Brunswick this weekend for a pair of games and came home with a 7-3 loss to Moncon and a 4-1 win over St. Thomas.

In Friday night’s game in Moncton, the Aigles Bleus built up a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes of play and the X-Men could not recover from the deficit. Ryan Desrosiers scored the opening goal in the game for StFX on the power play 7:23 into the first period, but the Aigles Bleus scored the next three as Dean Ouellet scored two goals and Mathieu Betournay added a single marker.

Moncton kept the goals coming in the second period as Charles Bergeron scored just 3:36 in, followed by a pair of goals by Mathieu Bolduc for a commanding 6-1 lead after 40 minutes. Bryce Swan scored two third period goals for StFX and Marc-Andre Cote wrapped up the scoring for Moncton who outshot the X-Men by a 47-34 margin.

Kevin Lachance earned the win in nets for Moncton, setting aside 31 X-Men shots. Joey Perricone started the game for X and had 16 saves and three goals against for the loss. Bryan Gillis closed out the game in the StFX net and had 24 saves. The loss was the largest goal differential this year for StFX, save for a 9-3 loss in Fredericton to the No. 1 Varsity Reds back in November.

The X-Men were able to regroup from the loss on Saturday night as they took on the St. Thomas Tommies and managed a 4-1 win. Both teams were held off the score sheet in the first period, but the X-Men took a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes of play on goals by Brennen Wray and Bryce Swan. Wray (Murdock MacLellan) scored 2:08 into the second frame and Swan followed up with a power play marker just two minutes later as Brett Morrison and Phil Mangan assisted in the play.

Murdock MacLellan (Brett Morrison, Mark Louis) increased the StFX lead to 3-0 with a goal two minutes into the third period. Matt Eagles scored the lone goal for the Tommies and Phil Mangan rounded out the scoring with an empty netter.

Bryan Gillis earned the win in nets for StFX with 24 saves as the X-Men outshot the Tommies by a slim 27-25 margin. Charles Lavinge took the loss for St. Thomas.

The X-Men now sit with a 9-7-3 record in fourth place in the AUS with 21 points, three back of third place Saint Mary’s. The X-Men will host the No. 7 ranked Huskies (10-5-4) on Friday at 7:00 pm, ten travel to Acadia (13-4-1) on Saturday night to face the No. 4 Axemen.

StFX Sports Information