Brandon Avezov, Anthony Calafiore and Tommy Bannister each scored a goal and David Posma assisted on all of three of them to lead the visiting Titans to a 3 – 1 win over the Johnstown Tomahawks at the War Memorial last night.
Johnstown opened the scoring with thirty-two seconds remaining in the first period. The Tomahawks’ Jake Black picked up the loose puck at his own far side half wall and lobbed it into the Titans zone where Jacob Badal retrieved it along the near side boards. Badal turned and made a cross-ice pass to Sean Ramsay at the faceoff dot and Ramsay made a backdoor pass through the slot to Black who one-timed it past Titans netminder Andrew Takacs to give the Tomahawks the lead.
Avezov tied the game with 4:29 remaining in the second period. Eric Charpentier picked up the loose puck at the top of his own slot and passed it Avezov who was waiting at the Johnstown far side blueline. As Avezov gained the line, he went to take shot that was blocked out front, but the rebound came back to Posma at the point. Posma took a shot that was saved by Johnstown’s goaltender Sam Evola but the rebound came right out to Avezov who was to the left of Evola and Avezov deposited the biscuit into the back of the net for his tenth goal of the season.
The Titans took their first lead of the night with 6:25 left in the game. Calafiore brought the puck up through center ice and into the Johnstown end. As Calafiore reached the far side faceoff circle, he sent a drop pass to Chris Carroll. Carroll took a shot on net that was redirected by Calafiore and past Evola for Calafiore’s twelfth goal of the year.
Bannister scored an empty net goal with 14 seconds remaining in the game to close out the scoring. It was Bannister’s first goal, and thirteenth of the season, in nine games.
Both goaltenders played extremely well with each one having to stop a penalty shot. In the end, Takacs stopped 26 of 27 shots while Evola turned aside 26 of 28. Click here for the box score.
The teams will play their second game of this two-game series tonight at 7:00PM.