Axemen drop Huskies 3-1

WOLFVILLE, N.S. - Riding a four game winning streak, the CIS No. 4 ranked Acadia Axemen extended it to five with a 3-1 win over the visiting Saint Mary's Huskies.

Acadia's Mike Cazzola (Guelph, Ont.) scored his first of two powerplay goals with under three minutes remaining in the opening period. Cazzola's goal, his ninth of the season, was on a wrist shot from the top of the faceoff circle to give the Axemen a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.

The Huskies tied the game up at one late in the second period on a deflected Kyle Pereira (Brampton, Ont.) wrist shot from under the blueline by Steve MacAulay (Cole Harbour, N.S.) on the man-advantage.

Late in the third period with just under four minutes remaining in the game, Cazzola scored his second goal of the night after one-timing a cross ice pass from Matt Pufahl (Saskatoon, Sask.) once again on the powerplay. Cazzola grabbed the Subway First Star of the Game honours for his two goal performance.

Axeman Sam Fioretti (Calgary, Alta.) added an empty net goal with 50 seconds remaining in the game to give Acadia a 3-1 win over Saint Mary's.

On a rare occasion, the Axemen were out-shot 35-31 and were two for six on the powerplay, while the Huskies were one for eight.

With the win, the Axemen improve to 11-2-1 on maintain first place in the AUS standings - one point ahead of StFX and three points ahead of UNB, while the Huskies drop to 7-5-2.

Acadia will host the Dalhousie Tigers this Friday night as a tipoff to Rogers Hometown Hockey weekend in Wolfville and the Huskies return home to host StFX on Saturday night at the Halifax Forum.

Source Acadia communications, photo Eric Cederberg