GRANITE CITY – Conditions for Edwardsville's Mid-States Club Hockey Association game against Fort Zumwalt West weren't the most ideal Thursday night.
Fog that had enveloped the St. Louis metro area surrounded the ice at Granite City's Wilson Park Ice Rink – essentially an outdoor rink with a roof atop it – which made conditions for the Tigers' game difficult.
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Despite the conditions, the Tigers pressed on and got out to a 2-0 lead through two periods before a four-goal third period – three of them coming from Lucas Tucker – gave EHS a 6-2 win over the Jaguars.
The win put the Tigers' record at 14-3-1 (29 points) for the year with two games to go in the regular season; the Jaguars fell to 11-4-2 (24 points).
“It was different conditions than we've played in all year,” Tiger coach Jason Walker of Thursday's game – the first Mid-States game played in Granite City in five years. “We practice here a lot and the game's a little bit different; it was definitely interesting. Both teams were battling the conditions tonight.
“It's nice to win against a good team; you could tell we'd been off for a little while as far as games go (the Tigers had been through a built-in break in the schedule; their last game was a Jan. 9 win over Vianney). We were a little rusty, but you can't complain about coming out with the win.”
The break gave the Tigers a chance to get some rest before heading into the final push for the MSCHA postseason, Walker felt. “Now it's time for us to be playing our best hockey; we've got to make sure we take more steps in that direction,” Walker said. “We'll take it a step at a time and as I said, we want to be playing our best hockey right now.”
Walker cited John Paul Krekovich, Reilly Patton and Logan Bielicke for outstanding games. “That line played really well,” Walker said. “They played hard and controlled the game, created a lot of chances. I thought that was good.”
Edwardsville got out of the gates very quickly as Stanley Lucas scored unassisted just 31 seconds into the game. “To get off to that quick start, that was good,” Walker said. “We were looking to build on it; their goalie (Nicholas Nemey) played well, but that first goal was big.”
Krekovich upped the EHS lead in the second period when, just past the midpoint of the period and the Jaguars' Caden Diel off for tripping, got a feed from Mitchell Oberlag and fired a shot past Nemey to put the Tigers ahead 2-0; Rory Margherio got an assist on the goal as well. Edwardsville got to a 3-0 lead just past the midpoint of the third period when Trevor Henson connected with Bielicke for a goal.
Tucker then took over the game when he scored twice in 23 seconds of the third period with Tyler Schaeffer assisting on the first goal and Lucas on the second to increase the lead to 5-0 in the late stages of the game. West got two of those goals back in a six-second span of the third when Dawson Colombatto scored unassisted and Jesse Nevels scored from Jacob Mcguire to cut the lead to 5-2; Tucker then finished a natural hat trick with 1:05 left with Lucas getting the assist for the final margin.
The Jaguars outshot the Tigers 26-23 on the night, with Matthew Griffin turning back 24 West shots and Nemey recording 17 saves for the Jaguars.
The Tigers return to Wilson Park for an 8 p.m. Jan. 26 game against CBC, then close out the regular season at 8:45 p.m. Jan. 28 at Webster Groves (Mo.) Recreation Complex against St. Louis U. High. The MSCHA playoffs begin soon afterwards, with the league's top 12 teams by record qualifying for the St. Louis Blues Challenge Cup playoffs and the next 16 teams reaching the Doug Wickenheiser Cup playoffs.
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