Tigers’ hockey surprise Timon with strong effort

Freshman Sean Smith made 29 saves and junior Matt Allwes scored his second goal of the season as the Tigers battled Bishop

Timon-St. Jude to a 4-1 loss Saturday on the Amherst Pepsi Center’s Feature Rink.

Timon got on the board first and halfway through the second period took a 2-0 lead on the power play.

The Tigers roared back with a power-play goal of their own. The puck caromed around the boards to junior Al McQuiggan. McQuiggan wasted no time and let a powerful slap shot go from the top of the faceoff circle. Allwes went hard to the net and made a beautiful deflection past the Timon goal to cut the lead to one.

“With the new rules this year in the Federation, we’ve put a lot of emphasis in practice on special teams,” said Amherst coach Rich Crozier. “That’s two games in a row we’ve recorded a power-play goal. Our focus is to get as many shots to the net as possible, and that’s what Al did. Matty crashed the net and made a real nice play. We needed that goal and it was

great to see the execution carry over from what we have been working on in practice.”

The game became very physical and Amherst showed they would not back down. The Tigers played their best period of the game recording 10 shots.

Penalty trouble plagued the Tigers in the third and ruined any chances for a comeback. Smith played very well, especially late in the game.

“By far this was Sean’s best game of the season,” said Crozier. “For me it comes down to one thing for Sean and that’s his focus, something that is not always easy for a freshman. He was very focused and kept us in the game.”

The Tigers take on small school division foe Williamsville South Thursday on the Feature Rink.

“Our team has made some progress since the East game,” said Crozier. “There is no doubt about that. The effort against St. Francis and Timon was excellent. That’s a big positive. What we need to focus on are the small things. First and foremost, finishing our offensive chances. We missed two open nets and rang one off the crossbar. We score on those three alone and we walk out with a tie. Secondly, we need to play more disciplined. We took too many penalties again and the ones late in the game took away our chance to make a comeback.”

“That said, the message in the locker room was clear,” he continued. “We are headed in the right direction and my team assured me that we will be ready for Thursday’s game against South.”