EAST ALTON – Edwardsville's hockey seniors have contributed much to the growth of the program the last four years.
This year's senior class has won three straight Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association Class 2A championships, going undefeated the past two seasons. This year, the senior class made the move to the Mid-States Club Hockey Association and hasn't missed a beat, helping the Tigers to a 11-3-1 mark in the league heading into their Senior Night and MSCHA Municipal Conference clash against Oakville at East Alton Ice Arena Thursday.
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It was the seniors who set the tone for the night as the program's all-time leading goal-scorer Tyler Schaeffer scored twice and had three assists, with four of the other seniors scoring on the night, as Edwardsville defeated Oakville 7-0 to go to 12-3-1 overall (25 points) and 10-3-1 (21 points) in the conference. Oakville fell to 4-9-1 (nine points) overall and 1-8-1 (three points) in the conference.
“The guys were really excited, not only for Senior Night, but just to be here at our home rink in front of a lot of students,” said Edwardsville coach Jason Walker. “It was a lot of fun and we knew, from the three times we've played them this year, this was a good team, so to come out the way we did was awesome.
Edwardsville's student cheer squad, the Orange Rush, was out in full force for Thursday's game and Walker was very happy they came out. “They were active and that obviously helps,” Walker said. “They were fired up and I think our kids fed off that.”
The shutout was Matthew Griffin's first of the season and Walker was happy he got it. “He hasn't gotten on all year and he's been outstanding for us,” Walker said. “The big message on the bench between periods was 'make sure we take care of our end and don't give up anything too big so Matt can get that.'
“He's been awesome for us all year and for him to get that was special.”
The surprising thing about Edwardsville's win was the evenness of the shots on goal; Edwardsville had 22 shots on goal, Oakville 24. “That's a strength of our team that we hadn't seen the last couple of games is the ability to to make the other team pay for mistakes and bury our scoring chances,” Walker said. “We got back to that tonight.”
Schaeffer opened the scoring 3:37 into the game when he took a feed from fellow senior Carson Lewis and tucked a shot past Oakville goalie Kyle Wedbush to get Edwardsville off to a flying start; junior Stanley Lucas then, with Trevor Henson off for cross-checking, found an opening and got past Oakville's defense to beat Wedbush for an unassisted short-handed goal with 3:20 left in the period to extend the lead to 2-0. Schaeffer then scored his second goal with 55.5 seconds left in the period, the assist going to Lucas Tucker for a 3-0 Edwardsville lead through one period.
Logan Bielicke took just 42 seconds into the second period to push the lead to 4-0, with assists going to Schaeffer and Lucas Tucker before Lewis himself scored with assists from Schaeffer and Henson and Henson pushed the lead to 6-0 through two periods from helpers by Schaeffer and Tucker. John Paul Krekovich joined the scoring parade in the third period with an assist from Connor Stewart to close out the scoring.
Next up for the Tigers is a 9:15 p.m. Saturday game at Kennedy Ice Rink at Suson Park in Lemay, Mo., against Lindbergh and a 7 p.m. Monday game at South County against Vianney before two straight home games at Granite City's Wilson Park Ice Rink Jan. 19 against Fort Zumwalt West and Jan. 26 against CBC; both Granite City games begin at 8 p.m. Edwardsville closes out the MSCHA regular season at 8:45 p.m. Jan. 28 at Webster Groves Recreation Center against St. Louis University High.
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