The visiting New Jersey Titans scored three unanswered goals to defeat the Jamestown Rebels last night 3 – 1 for the Red Buckets eighth straight victory.
After a scoreless first period, Jamestown opened the story with 5:13 left in the middle stanza. The Titans’ Blake Farrell was called roughing with 5:20 in the period, and seven seconds later the Rebels John Lundy scored his eighth goal of the season.
After Lundy won the ensuing draw deep inside the Titans zone, the puck went to Mitch Lafay at the nearside half wall and sent it back to Jak Vaarwerk at the point. As Vaarwerk started to walk the line towards his left, Vaarwerk passed it to Lundy at the top of the circle and Lundy took a wrist shot that trickled through the blocker side arm of Titans netminder Andrew Takacs and into the net to make a 1 – 0 game.
Two minutes later Rocco Testa-Basi knotted the score at one. Michael Young picked up the loose puck at his own nearside blueline and passed it up to Brandon Avezov at center ice. As the Avezov gained the line on a 3-on-1, he made a cross-ice pass from the faceoff dot to Testa-Basi in the slot and the Ottawa, ON native one-timed it past Jamestown goaltender Nolan Suggs for his sixth goal of the season.
The Titans took the lead at 9:06 of the third period. With the Titans pressuring inside the offensive zone, Anthony Calafiore picked up the loose puck in the Rebels far side corner and passed back to Testa-Basi at the faceoff dot. As Testa-Basi went to leave the ice for a line change, he passed it back to Jack Karlsson at the point. Karlsson made a cross-ice pass to Eric Charpentier at the near side point. Charpentier took a wrist shot that was saved by Suggs, but Calafiore kept poking at the puck and it slid past the goaler and into the net for seventh goal of the season.
With 3:12 remaining in the game, Colin Grable was called for holding to give the Rebels the man advantage. As time was winding down being shorthanded, David Posma scored the Titans fourth shorthanded goal of the season to close out the scoring and make it a 3 – 1 game.
Looking for one last chance on the powerplay, the Rebels’ Own Simmons picked up the loose puck at the top of the near side point and he went to pass it back to the middle of the point to Vaarwerk. The biscuit went too far from Vaarwerk’s stick and it was picked up by Tommy Bannister who walked in all alone on Suggs. As Bannister cut across the goalmouth, he took a point-blank shot that was saved by Suggs but the rebound came right back to Bannister who circled and pass the puck to a trailing Posma entering the zone. As Posma reached the top of the far side circle he took a wrist shot that beat Suggs short side for his second goal of the season.
Takacs, who was sharp all game long and had to make several key saves, turned aside 24 of 25 shots while stopped 23 of 26 in the loss. Click here for the box score.
The teams will meet again tonight at 7:00PM at the Northwest Arena for the second of this two-game series.