Hockey X-Men fall 5-4 to Tommies

With contributions from St. Thomas Athletics

Despite being outshot by a 34-16 margin, the St. Thomas Tommies pulled off a 5-4 victory over the StFX X-Men Saturday night in Fredericton to close play in the first half of the AUS season. 

X-Men head coach Brad Peddle commented, "After a great road win Friday night in PEI, it was very disappointing we could not pull out the win and finish the first half with the four point weekend."

"When you outshoot a team 35-16 on the road you need to find ways to capitalize and put the game away, but be sharp defensively as well. We let it get away from us and did not play our game for 60 minutes."

The Tommies took an early 1-0 lead as Robert Zandbeek scored unassisted off a turnover by StFX goaltender Drew Owsley seven minutes in. The lead was short-lived as the X-Men responded late in the period when Ted Stephens capitalized on the power play and tied the game at one apiece. Cole Grbavac and Nathan Chiarlitti had the helpers.

Stephen Sanza reclaimed the lead for the Tommies four minutes into the second period on a one timer that beat Owsley five hole. Less than two minutes later, Jason Trott gave STU a 3-1 lead after redirecting a point-blank shot from Marc-André Lévesque.

The X-Men came back to within one as Jarrad Struthers slotted the puck past Tommies goaltender Jonathan Groenheyde at 12:08. Jason Bast and Michael Kirkpatrick assisted.

Things seemed to be in StFX's favour after Colin Martin was penalized for roughing, putting the Tommies on the penalty kill, but Sanza broke out and made a cross-crease pass to Randy Cameron who buried the puck, scoring shorthanded at 13:47.

The X-Men responded, however, and closed the gap to 4-3 late in the second period when Bronson Maschmeyer scored through a point-blank shot on the power play. Struthers and Bast were in on the assists as the X-Men outshot the Tommies 21-13 through 40 minutes.

St. Thomas re-established their two-goal lead 42 seconds into the third period with a power play goal from Colin Martin. Minutes later, Zandbeek was penalized for interference and StFX took advantage as Stephens scored his second goal of the game (from Grbavac and Struthers) to bring the X-Men within one with 13 minutes left to play.

Despite a strong offensive effort, the X-Men were unable to get the puck past Groenheyde and the Tommies secured their fourth victory of the season. Groenheyde had 30 saves for the win.

Owsley took the loss in a frustrating game for the X-Men who drop to 7-6-1 but remain alone in third place in the AUS standings with 15 points.

StFX will take a break from AUS action for the holiday season but will play an exhibition game on Sunday, December 29th at the StFX Keating Centre against the Guelph Gryphons from the OUA conference. Game time is 7:00 pm.

AUS regular season play resumes Jan. 3rd and 4th at the Keating Centre as the X-Men host Moncton and UNB.