Reed Stark and Will Margel each had a pair of goals and an assist while John Gelatt had a goal and an assist to lead the Johnstown Tomahawks to an 8 – 1 win over the visiting New Jersey Titans. It was the Titans worst defeat since March 30, 2018 when they lost by the same score to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights (now Danbury Jr. Hat Tricks).
Stark scored both his goals in the first period exactly six minutes apart. He opened the scoring at 8:21 into the game after picking up the rebound on the doorstep from a Max Smolinski shot and putting it past Christian Stoever short side to give the Tomahawks the 1 – 0 lead.
Six minutes later Stark doubled the Tomahawks lead after redirecting a bouncing puck from a Daniel Tkac pass and slipping it past Stoever for his eighth goal of the season.
The Titans were on the wrong end a three-goal period from the Tomahawks. Middletown native John Gelatt gave the Tomahawks a 3 – 0 on a powerplay goal and then two even strength goals by Tkac and Margel made it 5 – 0.
The Titans got on the board when Zach Nazzarett scored with 1:06 remaining in the middle stanza. With the Tomahawks looking to break out of their own end, Brad Zona intercepted an outlet pass at the top of the near side blueline and took a shot on net that was redirected by Nazzarett in the goal mouth and past Johnstown’s netminder Josh Graziano for his eight goal of the season.
The Tomahawks added three more goals in the third from Brandan Clark, Holt Oliphant and Margel to close out the scoring.
Stoever lasted 36:38 giving up four goals on 24 shots while Louden Hogg went the rest of the way turning aside 15 of 19 shots. Graziano stopped 19 of 20 shots. Click here for the box score.
The Titans will look to regroup and get back in the win column tonight with the second game of this two-game series against the Tomahawks and break a three-game losing streak. Puck drop is slated for 7:00 PM and can be viewed on HockeyTV.