{"id":34142,"date":"2024-02-01T17:16:30","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T22:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=34142"},"modified":"2024-02-08T16:42:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T21:42:20","slug":"rookie-laden-tigers-roster-rolls-to-5-3-win-over-the-pickering-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/rookie-laden-tigers-roster-rolls-to-5-3-win-over-the-pickering-panthers\/","title":{"rendered":"Rookie-laden Tigers\u2019 roster rolls to 5-3 win over the Pickering Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rookie center Jobey Pearson\u2019s three-point performance \u2013 and key goals by first year defensemen Carson Littlejohns, Jacob Carroll, and Liam Longo \u2013 paced the Aurora Tigers to a 5-3 win over the Pickering Panthers at the ACC on Friday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remarkably, it was the Tigers\u2019 first home game of 2024 after a grueling six-city road trip and the young team opened it efficiently by scoring on its first power play opportunity. 35 seconds into Pickering forward\u2019s Joseph Colangelo\u2019s two-minute hooking penalty and 10-minute misconduct for abuse of officials, Littlejohn\u2019s snap shot from the left point flew through the Pickering PK unit and goaltender Glen McInnes to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sturdy, smooth-skating defenseman\u2019s third of the season\u2014set up by Pearson and Josh Frenette \u2014was a crucial goal at 9.35. According to Littlejohn, \u201cIt created momentum for us. We needed a big win tonight on home ice and getting the lead was important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Littlejohn expressed relief that the team was back in its home rink after a month away from the ACC following the completion of a challenging 1-5 road trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to be back. I love it. It helped us a lot tonight being back here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a night when the young Tigers\u2019 defense corps provided three of its team\u2019s five goals with accurate shots from the point, Littlejohn explained the connection between practice and game performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThursday night is D practice and we work on the skills we need to defend.  We also worked on creating scoring opportunities from the blue line.  Our D was able to score three tonight. We\u2019re young and it\u2019s great to win together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

73 seconds after Littlejohn had given his team the lead, former Tiger Zennon Edwards\u2014who tallied 23 points for the 2022-23 Aurora squad\u2014tied the game when he rifled a puck past Yianni Karkoulas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edwards scored his ninth of the season to give the Panthers a 2-1 lead at 2:53 of the second period which featured free-flowing skating, excellent defensive stick work by both teams, and fine goaltending by Karkoulas and McInnes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Edwards narrowly missed his hat trick by ringing one off the crossbar, Tigers\u2019 defenseman Jacob Carroll tallied his second goal of the campaign and evened the score. Newly-appointed Assistant Captain Asher Goduco\u2014who hails from Lake Forest, Illinois\u2014assisted on Carroll\u2019s tying goal at 14:46 of the middle frame and the divisional rivals skated into the second intermission deadlocked 2-2. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six minutes into the third period, tenacious Tigers Captain Decaluwe fired a puck that McInnes stopped but could not corral. Aurora\u2019s leading scorer Frank Castiglione banged in the rebound to restore the home team\u2019s one-goal lead. Decaluwe and Adam Matar earned the assists on Castiglione\u2019s eleventh of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the lead restored, the bruising Tiger trio of Matar, Kyle Baston, and Tyler Oletic continued hitting any black-jerseyed Panther on the ice and Aurora\u2019s heavy game seemed to sap some of the life out of the visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Darren Wilson\u2019s unassisted goal pulled Pickering into a 3-3 tie at 7:49 on a second chance opportunity after Karkoulas had made a brilliant athletic save on the speedy Panther forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than folding under the pressure of surrendering a third period lead, the rookie-laden Tigers lineup demonstrated resilience after Wilson\u2019s tying goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora\u2019s game-winning goal came courtesy of the young defense corps\u2014its third goal of the game \u2013when Liam Longo lit the lamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mobile rookie defender crept in from the blue line and banged in a rebound inside the left circle.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Longo\u2019s power play goal at 10:40 was assisted by Pearson and Frenette\u2014a confluence of first-year players whose games flowed together nicely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Matar, the Tigers\u2019 hard-hitting forward, provided the Tigers with an insurance goal at 15:10 when he finished a perfect pass from Pearson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BC-born playmaker\u2019s third assist of the game and twelfth of the season expanded the Tigers\u2019 lead to 5-3 and allowed the faithful ACC fans to exhale in existential relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Matar drew an interference penalty with 3:59 left in the game, the Tigers\u2019 PK unit of Connor Russo, Decaluwe, Jack Rispin, and Christian Holden held the fort to repel the Panthers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russo\u2019s big blocked shot and his timely takeaway, along with the steely determination of rookie netminder Karkoulas, preserved the Tigers\u2019 margin of victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karkoulas earned the W by turning aside 22 of the 25 shots, and his athleticism was on full display throughout the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Stewart<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rookie center Jobey Pearson\u2019s three-point performance \u2013 and key goals by first year defensemen Carson Littlejohns, Jacob Carroll, and Liam Longo \u2013 paced the Aurora Tigers to a 5-3 win over the Pickering Panthers at the ACC on Friday night. Remarkably, it was the Tigers\u2019 first home game of 2024 after a grueling six-city road […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8SG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 17:01:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}