Michael Young had five total points while Anthony Calafiore had three total points to help lead the Titans to a 7 – 4 win over the visiting Johnstown Tomahawks last night. Young and Calafiore each had a pair of goals included in their points.
The win was the fourteenth straight game in which New Jersey recorded a point.
The Titans took an early 1 – 0 lead when Calafiore scored a powerplay goal just 1:59 into the game. Eight seconds before the Titans captain scored, Johnstown’s Justin Rapp was called for tripping to give the Red Buckets the man advantage.
After Calafiore won the ensuing faceoff, the puck went back to Brendan Dumas at the end of the circle and he passed it back to Eric Charpentier at the top of the point. The Dartmouth commit sent it Young who was at the far side half wall. Young made a quick pass in the slot, and the captain took a wrist shot that found its way through a screen and beat Johnstown’s goalie Alec Rajalin-Scharp high blocker side for the 1 – 0 lead.
The Titans doubled their lead with 4:58 remaining in the period on Joe Harney’s second goal of the season. Charpentier picked up the loose puck at the end wall behind the Johnstown net and started to circle along the boards when he passed it up to Calafiore at the bottom of the far side faceoff circle. Calafiore sent the biscuit back to Dominik Bartecko ad the point, who passed it over to Harney at the top of the near side point, and Harney took a wrist that beat Rajalin-Scharp.
Bartecko’s assist on Harney’s goal was his eighteenth point as a Titan. Since being acquired in mid-November he has had at least one point in all the twelve games he as played as a Red Bucket. In all, he has seven goals and eleven assists in those twelve games.
Levente Keresztes gave the Titans a 3 – 0 lead at 1:45 into the middle stanza. After the Titans dumped the puck into the Johnstown slot, Rajalin-Scharp went behind his own net to retrieve it, and he left it for Gabriel Lunn. As Lunn went to bring the up along the far side of the net, he was stripped of the biscuit by Young who passed it out to Keresztes in the slot, and the Budapest Hungry native deposited the puck into the back of the net for Keresztes fourteenth goal of the season.
Young made it 4 – 0 right after he stepped out of the penalty box with 2:27 remaining in the second. Brady Hildreth picked up the loose puck at his own far side circle and saw that Young had just stepped onto the ice after serving a penalty. Hildreth head manned the puck up to Young at center ice and walked in all alone and beat Rajalin-Scharp for Young’s first of two straight Titans goals.
Johnstown’s Will Moore scored on a nifty move out front and beat Zak Brice with 1:32 left in the period to put the Tomahawks on the board and make it a 4 – 1 game.
Young scored his second goal of the game, a powerplay goal, five minutes into the third to make it a 5 – 1 game. It was Young’s thirteenth goal of the season.
Charpentier scored his seventh goal of the season at 8:42 of the period to make it a 6 – 1 game.
What was thought to be a runaway game, Johnstown scored three goals to make it an interesting contest. Ethan Perrault, Johnny Ulicny and Anthony Galante within five minutes to make it 6 – 4 but Calafiore put the game out of reach when he scored an empty net goal with thirty-seven seconds left in the game to make it 7 – 4.
Brice stopped 22 of 26 shots while Rajalin-Scharp turned aside 28 of 34. Click here for the complete box score.
The teams will play game two of this two-game series tonight at 7:30PM at the Middletown Sports Complex.