X-Men lose in shootout to Tommies

The X-Men hockey team fell 6-5 in a shootout to the St. Thomas Tommies Saturday night in Fredericton. It marked the second consecutive night the X-Men played an overtime game as they lost 3-2 in OT the night before to Moncton.

Saturday’s game against the Tommies saw the teams play to a 2-2 draw after two periods of play before exploding for six goals in the third period for the 5-5 draw after regulation.

The home team Tommies got on the board first with a first period marker by Andrew Andricopoulos, then Steve Sanza scored a shorthanded goal 5:12 into the second period to give the Tommies a 2-0 lead. The X-Men battled back to tie the game with second period goals from Josh Day (Undershute, Stephens) and Bryce Swan (Pageau), both on the power play.

The wide open third period saw goals from Sanza, Jonathan Bonneau and Robert Zandbeek for the Tommies and Michael Kirkpatrick, Kevin Undershute and Swan for the X-Men.

Sanza gave the Tommies the 3-2 lead with his second goal of the game just 1:22 into the final period, then Kirkpatrick replied with an unassisted marker less than two minutes later. Bonneau scored at 4:29 for St. Thomas then the X-Men had consecutive goals from Undershute (Chisholm) and Swan (Kirkpatrick, Pageau) at 7:59 and 12:22 to give StFX their only lead in the game at 5-4.

Zandbeek scored a power play goal at the 15:00 minute mark for St. Thomas to put the game at 5-5 which held until the overtime period. Despite two power play opportunities for each team in the extra period, the score remain tied and a shootout was required, the first one for each team this season.

In the sixth round of the shootout Jordan Scott became the hero for the Tommies as he beat StFX netminder Joey Perricone to score the game winner.

The Tommies held the edge in shots at 35-30 and Charles Lavigne earned the win in nets for St. Thomas.

Despite the two weekend losses, the X-Men picked up two points in the standings. They currently hold a 3-5-2 record and are in sixth place in the AUS conference.

Next up on the schedule is a pair of home games on November 18th and 19th. Friday night, Nov. 18th StFX will host the fourth place Saint Mary’s Huskies (6-4-1) followed by a match against the eighth place Dalhousie Tigers (2-9-0) on Nov. 19th. Puck drop both evenings is 7:00 pm at the StFX Keating Centre.