Lavigne and Chermetiev play hero as Tommies defeat X-Men

Charles Lavigne was stellar this evening helping the
Tommies win in a shootout against the St-FX X-Men
Courtesy Dylan Buell

Well kiss that 12 game losing streak good-bye because our Tommies defeated the St-FX X-Men 2 to 1 in a shoot out tonight.  The win was the fourth of the year for STU - one more than last year - and more importantly keeps us 4 points behind the X-Men for the final playoff position.

The best part of this game was in overtime and the shoot out but the Tommies had to get there first.  STU scored early in the first at 4:29 off the stick of Jordan Scott (Gallant, Cheremetiev) for a 1 - 0 lead that would last until the third.  St. Thomas would come close several times but had to lean heavily on Charles Lavigne most of the way to get the game to overtime.  Shots were 12 - 6 for STU in the first, 17 - 12 for X in the second, and 9 - 1 in the third for X.  The X-Men broke Lavigne's shut out bid with 7:25 to go in the final period.

Early in overtime, Jonathan Bonneau rushed in and fired a laser beam square off the crossbar to come oh so close to ending it.  St-FX found some composure and came close to scoring themselves several times, if not for Lavigne.  OT was back and forth with shots favouring X 9 to 3 but it would solve nothing.

Yuri Cheremetiev scored the shoot out winner for the Tommies
Courtesy Dylan Buell

In the shoot out the X-Men would shoot first.  Jordan Scott, Jonathan Bonneau, and Randy Cameron would shoot for STU.  The X-Men missed on their first three shooters, although one got by Lavigne but trickled out and hit the post.  Scott was stoned, Bonneau rang one off the crossbar, and Cameron missed.  The fourth X shooter scored and it was up to Robert Zandbeek to score and he did, going five hole.  The fifth X shooter missed, which set up Yuri Cheremetiev.  Yuri made no mistake with a back hand toe drag putting it high out of the reach of the X-Men goaltender Morgan Clark for the winner.

STU gets their first win of 2012 and 3 out of 4 points in NS this weekend.  They return home next week to face the very same SMU and St-FX teams in their last visits to the LBR.