Antigonish, NS - The STFX X-Men hockey team gave the home crowd something to cheer about with a 2-1 victory over the Acadia Axemen Saturday night at the Keating Centre in a closely contested game.
The first two periods saw a lot of action but no goals scored as both Acadia's Logan Flodell (Regina, SK) and STFX's Joseph Raaymakers (Chatham, ON) kept clean sheets though 40 minutes.
There was no shortage of hits, and a minor boondoggle near the end of the second period resulted in 10-minute misconducts for X's Declan Smith (Antigonish, NS) and Acadia's Nicholas Deakin-Poot (Georgetown, ON).
STFX struck first in the third period with Matthew Philip (Ilderton, ON) finding twine while the X-Men were on a two-man power play. Liam Hawel (Arnprior, ON) fed STFX captain Santino Centorame (Mississauga, ON) in the low slot who fired a shot with Phillip banging in the rebound at the 2:02 mark.
Acadia made it a game just over a minute and a half later when Peyton Hoyt (Fredericton, NB) picked up the puck in the neutral zone and fired a shot from the slot that eluded Raaymakers.
The X-Men scored the game winning goal at 11:41 of the third period on a nice tic-tac-toe play. Zack Trott (Mulmur, ON) made a pass to Hawel across the slot, then Hawel snapped it right back to him and Trott buried the puck in the wide open Axemen goal. Matthew Struthers (Milton,ON) had the other assist on the play.
Acadia made things interesting with a power play with 17 seconds remaining in the game, but the X-Men held on for the victory.
With the win, STFX moves to 2-0-0 early in the regular season, while Acadia falls to 1-1.
Flodell earned the third star of the game for his 34 save performance. STFX's Hawel received the second star, and X goaltender Raaymakers was the first star and Subway player of the game with his 32 saves and second win on the young season.
After the game, Raaymakers gave credit to the team for his performance.
"It's been 18, 19 months off and the boys came together to play well the first weekend and we just want to build on it," he said.
"I felt good in there but I've got to give kudos to the team. Our special teams played well, the penalty kill at the end. We covered that up and played a solid game all around."
STFX next hits the ice on Wednesday to take on Dalhousie at home, while Acadia heads to New Brunswick to take on UNB the same night.
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Courtesy Matt Draper, STFX Sports Information
Prior to the game STFX Athletics was honoured to have local health care professionals (L to R) ER nurse Melissa Larade, Dr. Tania Sullivan and Dr. Jane Anne Howard join our X-Men on centre ice for the ceremonial puck drop. We thank all health care providers for everything you have done for the Antigonish community!