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","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":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_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}]}}