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EAST ALTON – When Alton's hockey team took on Edwardsville in the opening week of the Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association season, the Tigers gave some indication of how good they have been this season.
The Tigers defeated the Redbirds 11-2 on that opening night for EHS and they haven't looked back since. The two teams came together again Tuesday night at East Alton Ice Arena, and while the result was much closer, the Tigers remained undefeated on the year as Tyler Schaeffer had a hat trick in a 5-1 Tiger win.
“I feel like we're improving every game,” said Redbird coach Abram Henson. “Today, the guys came out to play, and honestly, I thought we had a shot, especially at the end when we controlled the puck, out of the last four minutes, three of them.”
Henson gave sophomore goaltender Caleb Currie quite a bit of credit for his performance between the pipes; he had 50 saves on the night as the Tigers kept the pressure on him. “Caleb is a fantastic goaltender,” Henson said. “He's a sophomore and it was the same situation we were in last time when they shot 60-something pucks and he saved most of them. That's huge.
“I think he gets up for these games against Edwardsville. Goaltending is something you never take for granted, especially in this league.”
“We knew they would be better,” said Tiger coach Jason Walker. “They're a well-coached team; they've got some players there that can play. They played well tonight; their goalie was outstanding, they skated right with us. Tip your cap to them, they played very well.”
The Tigers did get out of the gates very quickly; they took an early lead when John Teske scored from a Jake Aurelio assist just 1:06 into the game, then expanded the lead several minutes later when, with Alton's Tyler St. Peters off for a high stick, Schaeffer took a feed from Connor Lewis and beat Currie for a 2-0 lead.
Currie, though, was more than equal to the task as the Tigers peppered shot after shot at him, and Walker wasn't surprised by his performance. “I think last time we played them, we had something like 65 shots, and he played awesome,” Walker said. “He's one of the elite players in the league and you've got to create high-quality chances to get one by him. We did tonight and he made some saves, so he was outstanding.”
Schaeffer expanded the Tiger lead to 3-0 with 2:57 left in the first when he got a pass from Aurelio and beat Currie, then took it to 4-0 in the second period when Lucas Tucker scored off assists from Lewis and Trevor Henson. The Redbirds finally solved Edwardsville goalie Matthew Griffin when, with Henson off for slashing, Bryce Simon found Scott Waldrup open and Waldrup beat Griffin high to cut the lead to 4-1, St. Peters also getting an assist on the play.
It remained that way through most of the third period until Schaeffer completed his hat trick on an unassisted goal with 52.8 second left.
The Tigers have the rest of the week off and visit Granite City at Granite City's Wilson Park Ice Rink at 7:15 p.m. Monday; the Redbirds take to the ice again when they meet up with Bethalto at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday at East Alton.
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