Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
EAST ALTON – Edwardsville's hockey program had a memorable first year in the Mid-States Club Hockey Association; the Tigers reached the semifinals of the St. Louis Blues Challenge Cup Playoffs before they were eliminated by CBC, who reached their 17th straight championship game.
The new-look Tigers are determined to make another deep playoff run this season, and they began that quest with a 7-0 win over Fort Zumwalt South in their MSCHA season-opener Thursday night at East Alton Ice Arena.
“On paper, that looks really good, considering we had a first-game, new-look lineup,” said Tiger coach Jason Walker. “We got contributions up and down the lineup, so it was a nice win.”
The Tigers have just six seniors on this year's Mid-States team; Walker realizes that there's much improvement the team will make as the season wears on. “When you're a coach, you're always nitpicking on the things you need to improve on; you're never happy,” Walker said. “I think there's a lot of things that we can go back and look at the tape and improve on from this game, and we will.
“The guys are motivated and they want to be the best; I think this will be a perfect learning experience – you win and you also have some things you can look at and work on.”
The majority of Tigers on this year's Mid-States team are newcomers to this level of competition; outside of Trevor Laub and Mason Young, everyone who was on the ice for EHS were making their varsity debuts.
“The guys on this team saw what we did last year and they're ready to write their own chapter in this program's history,” Walker said. “You can tell they were fired up, especially playing at East Alton (this year's MSCHA home rink for the Tigers).”
Things got off to a bit of a tight start, the Tigers' first goal coming with 3:32 left in the first period when Collin Salter got EHS on the board from with assists from Laub and Jack Sumner; things didn't stay like that long as Mark Tucker scored just 35 seconds into the second period off helpers from Laub and Samuel Gibbons before Trevor Dailey upped the lead to 3-0 off a Tucker assist.
Minutes later, with the Bulldogs' Evan Peterson off for hooking, Andrew Larose got a power-play goal with 1:48 to go in the second from a Sumner assist to increase the lead to 4-0; Cameron Gillen then got a goal with 12.5 seconds left in the second from assists by Salter and Sumner. Goals from Tucker (assisted by Gillen while short-handed) and from Dailey (from Sumner on a power play) closed out the scoring for EHS for the night.
Edwardsville ended up having 38 shots on goal for the night, while the Bulldogs could only manage nine shots, Young turning aside all nine shots in getting the win.
Next up for the Tigers is an early showdown with CBC at 9 p.m. Monday at Affton Ice Rink in south St. Louis County before an encounter with Lindbergh at 9:30 p.m. Nov. 10 at South County Ice Rink.
