Comeback win in Kingston bolsters Tigers lead in standings

December 11, 2013 · 0 Comments

By Jeff Doner

A thrilling, come-from-behind 5-4 victory over the Kingston Voyageurs was a highlight of the Aurora Tigers’ road trip last week.

The victory was one of two wins as they completed their tour, including dominating the Mississauga Chargers.

The two wins have helped them build their first place lead in the north division standings.

Aurora Tigers’ assistant coach Tom Milne said he likes what he has been seeing from his team lately.

“No question, they’ve all bought in. There has been no panic,” he said. “There’s a calm confidence among the guys right now. It’s paying off by working hard. We’re a very skilled team, but a hard working team will beat a skilled team any day if that skilled team doesn’t work.”

Last week’s victories both came on the road as the Tigers near the tail end of a stretch where they played seven of eight games away from the ACC.
After a long bus trip to Kingston, the Tigers started the game at a snail’s pace. By the midway point of the second period, the Voyageurs had built up a 4 – 0 lead over the road weary Tigers.

Nevertheless, before the second period was out, the always reliable Kory Kennedy got the Tigers on the board with a minute and a half left on the power play.

“JR [Head Coach James Richmond] just kept telling the guys to believe in themselves and just stick to the game plan,” Milne said.

That seemed to set things up for a good third period; a period in which the Tigers would mount a relentless offensive push against the Voyageurs.
Defenseman Eric Williams got the Tigers to within two with a power play goal and then added his second of the game to make it 4 – 3 at 18:34 with an extra attacker on the ice.

Then with just 57 seconds left, Tigers leading scorer Taylor McCloy provided some heroics by knotting the score at 4 to send the game into overtime and eventually the shootout, where captain Robert Angiolella would score the only goal to complete the comeback win for the Tigers.

Entmaa got the victory in net for the Tigers in relief of Munroe, but Milne said the team didn’t support their goalie enough in the first period.
“Entmaa came in and did a wonderful job in relief and it wasn’t that Munroe played bad, once again it’s our first period,” he said. “We got behind quickly, so when we made the goalie change it was more just to say to the guys, ‘Hey, you just left this guy out to dry a bit, wake up.’”

Angiolella said it was a big win for the Tigers, especially because it came on the road.

“Obviously it’s a huge character win for us. We have a lot of young guys on the team, to have ups and downs, but right now we’re on a really big high, so we want to keep that going.”