Comeback falls short in Moncton

After falling behind U de M 5 to 1 early in the second period, the Tommies pushed hard to come back but fell short 5 to 4.  As short staffed as STU is, there is no quit in this team and they battled hard right to the very end.

This evening in Moncton, U de M scored two goals in the first 2:23 of the opening period and again at 10:23 for a three goal lead.  Alex Labonte fed a nice pass to Felix Poulin, who was all alone in front, to cut the lead to two.  Moncton scored at 13:41 to regain the three goal advantage and would take that to the locker room after the first period.  Shots were 14 to 4 for U de M.

The Tommies would have a power play to start the second period but it was Moncton shorthanded that scored at the 51 second mark for a 5 to 1 lead. Jon Groenheyde would come up big a few times in the remainder of the period as U de M would take the four goal lead to the final period.

Either U de M feel asleep in the third period or the short bench Tommies put together one of their best periods of the season.  Steve Sanza (Zandbeek, Cameron) scored at 4:14 to cut the lead to three, then Rob Zandbeek scored from a bad angle at 8:47 to make it 5 to 3.

St. Thomas pressed and missed several good chances in the final 10 minutes.  Yuri Cheremetiev (MacDonald, Morehouse) would make a beauty rush late in the third and score the highlight of the night at 18:31 but STU couldn't find the tying goal and ended up dropping the game 5 to 4 despite the strong comeback effort.  STU outshot Moncton 16 to 7 in the third.

The Tommies come back to Fredericton tonight and will take on UPEI tomorrow at 7 PM.  The Panthers dropped an overtime heartbreaker to UNB tonight 3 to 2.  UPEI was up 2 to 0 at one point in the game.