The visiting Maryland Black Bears scored four unanswered goals en route to a 4 – 1 victory of the Titans last night in game one of this two-game weekend series between the teams.
The Titans opened the scoring at 6:37 into the opening period when Chris Carroll would score his thirteenth goal of the season and eleventh as a Red Bucket. After Eric Charpentier brought the puck into the Maryland zone, the puck would go the near side end wall. After a scrum behind the net, Carroll was able to elude his checker and bring the puck towards the left of Black Bears goalie Luca Di Pasquo. As Carroll started to circle towards the net, he took a sharp angle shot that beat Di Pasquo short side to make it a 1 – 0 game.
Maryland’ Adam Schankula evened the score midway through the first. The Black Bear’s Lake Aldridge dumped the puck into the offensive zone where it wrapped around the boards and was stopped by Titans goaltender Andrew Takacs behind his own net. As Takacs went to pass the puck into the far side corner, it was blocked by Conor Cole who passed the biscuit to Schankula in the slot and the Maryland forward deposited the puck into the empty net for his second goal of the season.
The Black Bears took the lead just thirty-six seconds into the middle stanza. With play behind the Titans net, Maryland’s Aden Bruich was able to pick up the loose puck after a lengthly scrum at the end wall and he passed it back to Jack Blanchett at the far side point. Blanchett took a clapper that founds its way through a screen and past Takacs for Blanchett’s eleventh goal of the season.
Maryland doubled their lead five minutes later. The Black Bears Kevin Scott cleared the puck from his own near side corner and all the way into the Titans zone where is was retrieved by Takacs in his own slot. As Takacs went to dump the puck into his own far side corner, he was stripped of it by the Black Bears’ Tyler Young who made a centering pass out front and Elliott Lareau redirected the biscuit past the Titans netminder to make it a 3 – 1 game.
Englishtown, NJ native Aidan McDowell scored a powerplay goal with eight minutes remaining in the third period to close out the scoring and make it a 4 – 1 game.
Andrew Takacs and Ben Charette (who replaced Takacs after Lareau’s goal) combined to stop 41 of 45 shots while Di Pasquo turned aside 30 of 31. Click here for the box score.
The Titians will close out their 2021-22 regular season home schedule tonight at 7:00PM against Maryland. It is Fan Appreciation Night. All fans will receive Titans players cards (while supplies last) and there will be a meet and greet with the players immediately following the game. All tickets will be $5.