EAST ALTON – Regardless of the part of the season a hockey team is in, if a team can find a way to get a point in the standings, they'll take it.
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Edwardsville certainly did that in their Mid-States Club Hockey Association game at East Alton Ice Arena Thursday night, getting goals from Stanley Lucas and Mitchell Oberlag as the Tigers battled Kirkwood to a 2-2 tie. The draw left EHS at 5-6-2 (12 points) on the season, 2-6-2 (six points) in the Municipal Conference, and the Pioneers at 3-6-2 (eight points), 2-6-1 (five points) in the Muny.
“It was a much better effort defensively; I thought it was one of the better games we've played defensively,” said Tiger coach Jason Walker. “To limit them to (20) shots to a few scoring chances – we made a couple of mistakes and they're a good team. They'll make you pay for them and you wish you had those back.”
Both of Edwardsville's goals on the night were good goals, especially Oberlag's goal that tied the game late in the second period. “That's the way you're going to have to score against a goalie (the Pioneers' Mitchell Day); if he sees it, he's going to stop it – two really good plays as far as those goals are concerned,” Walker said.
Walker was happy that the Tigers got a point in the standings against the Pioneers. “Against a team like that, you are (happy to get a point),” Walker said. “Obviously, you want to be selfish; I thought we played well enough to get the two points tonight – their goalie made some saves.
“I thought we had a little lull there in the middle of the game and it ended up costing us. You're never going to play perfect all the time – Matt (Griffin) played well in that little stretch; we just made two big mistakes and we tried to do a little too much in the offensive zone and kind of left the pressure off them, but overall, I thought it was a good game.”
Lucas gave the Tigers the early lead when he took a pass from Trevor Dailey and put the puck past Day at 4:29 of the first period. Play continued steady with Day and Griffin coming up with some good saves before Trevor Buchanan got a feed from Reilly Just and put the puck past Griffin to tie the game at 1-1 with 2:43 left in the period; a bit more than a minute later, Austin Cleveland found an opening and ripped the puck past Griffin to put Kirkwood ahead 2-1 through the first period.
It stayed that way until there was 2:26 left in the second period, when Dailey got a pass over to Oberlag, who got it into the goal to tie proceedings up at 2-2. Both Griffin and Day came up big when they were needed the rest of the way to preserve the tie.
Next up for the Tigers is an 8:30 p.m. Dec. 28 game at East Alton against Lindbergh before they head over to Webster Groves for a 8:45 p.m. Dec. 30 game against St. Louis University High; two nights after that, EHS hosts Oakville at 6 p.m. New Year's Night at EAIA.
Steven Spencer also contributed to this story.
