Axemen fall 4-2 to X-Men

Cazzola & Farrell with Acadia goals

Hockey is a game of bounces, sometimes they are in your favour, sometimes they go against you. On Friday night in Antigonish, the Acadia Axemen faced the StFX X-Men, but unfortunately for the visitors, the bounces weren’t in their favour, as the X-Men walked away with a 4-2 victory.

The two teams played a scoreless opening frame, with StFX out shooting Acadia 10-3, with two 1st period power plays, but Axemen goalie Brandon Glover stood tall keeping donuts on the scoreboard.

The Axemen got on the board at 5:16 of the second period, while on the power play, as third year forward Mike Cazzola was able to bat a loose puck out of the air, and passed the fallen X-Men goalie, Drew Owsley, to make it 1-0. The X-Men answered back at 10:55 when Eric Locke made a nice individual effort to get deep inside the Acadia zone, but seemingly ran himself out of space and threw a puck from a bad angle towards the crease, the puck bounced off of Axemen defender Stephen Woodworth and past Glover to square the game at 1.

Just a minute and a half later, X’s Zack MacQueen scored on a goal that deflected off of a couple of sticks in front of the Acadia net, from the initial point shot from defenseman Trey Lewis, redirecting by Glover, who had no chance. These two bounces changed the complexion of the game as StFX found new life and confidence with the new found lead.

At 19:19, the X-Men added a third unanswered marker as Brad Cuzner converted on a tight pass from MacQueen in the crease to make it 3-1 after two periods, despite Acadia out shooting X 13-10 in the second frame.

The Axemen put pressure on in the third period trying to claw back, and at 16:28 while on the power play, Kyle Farrell put home a Matt Pufahl rebound to cut the X lead to 1 at 3-2. Acadia continued to press, pulling their goaltender in favour of an extra attacker, but StFX’s Steven Kuhn scored into the open net to seal the 4-2 win for the home team. X-Men Zack MacQueen picked up an assist on the goal for his third point on the night.

The Axemen outshot the X-Men 10-3 in the third period, making it 26-23 in favor of the visitors through the 3 periods. Acadia was 2 for 3 on the powerplay for the game, while StFX was 0 for 3. Acadia remains perfect on the season on the penalty kill at 100%.

Acadia returns home for a pair of crucial games next weekend as they host UNB Friday and UPEI on Saturday night in Wolfville.