Axemen fall 4-1 to StFX

Childerley scores for Acadia in 2nd straight game

xmen

The Acadia Axemen travelled to Antigonish on Saturday night to face the StFX X-Men, but the result they left with wasn’t what they had hoped for. On the strength of three powerplay goals, StFX dropped Acadia by a 4-1 score.

Acadia started the game off well, with Brendan Childerley one timing home a shot, on a nice feed from Chance Braid to put the Axemen up 1-0 at 9:28 of the opening frame. That was the only scoring play of the period and actually held up until nearly midway through the second period.

At 8:42 of the second, Jagger Dirk was able to put a puck past first year Axemen netminder Devin Williams to tie the game at one on the powerplay. Shortly after that, Williams was forced to leave the game as he was injured on a collision in front of the Acadia net. Williams was down on the ice for several minutes before getting to his feet on his own power and heading to the dressing room. Robert Steeves spelled his relief, but was beaten with a shot on the powerplay just minutes later as Holden Cook made it 2-1 StFX.

The Axemen opened up the third period on the powerplay hoping they could find the equalizer, but after not taking advantage, StFX turned the tides and scored their third goal of the night, as Bryson Cianfrone tipped home a Cole MacDonald shot from the point that beat a screen Steeves to make it 3-1.

Acadia was called for a penalty late in the game as they pushed to cut the lead to one, and pulled their netminder in favor of the extra attacker, but Craig Duininck found the empty net to round out the scoring, the goal came on the powerplay at 19:04 of the third.

For Acadia, Devin Williams turned aside 18 of 19 shots while Robert Steeves stopped 5 of 8 shots. For StFX, Brandon Hope stopped 32 of 33 shots on goal for the win. Acadia was 0 for 7 on the powerplay while StFX was 3 for 7.

With the loss, Acadia’s season record drops to 1-1, while StFX improves to 2-0. The teams will return to the ice Friday, Oct. 14, when the Axemen host the Dalhousie Tigers, in Wolfville, while the X-Men will travel to Halifax to face the Saint Mary’s Huskies. Puck drop for both match-ups is 7 p.m.

Axemen freshman Stephen Harper missed the game after being injured in last night’s game against Saint Mary’s. Coach Burns hopes to have him back in the lineup for next weekends games.