Axemen First Half Questions Answered – Defense
The first half of the AUS season is over, actually more than half the games on the season have been played already, as this season due to the National tournament being hosted by the AUS conference, the teams played 16 of the 28 games prior to the Exam/Holiday break, instead of the standard 14. The Axemen finished those 16 games with a 12-3-1 record, tied for 2nd, and one point out of the AUS top spot. Over the next ten days, we’ll look back at the Axemen first half of the season, and the top 5 questions AUS enthusiasts and fans had about this year’s Axemen team, and the outcome thus far in those 5 areas.
The first and arguably most important question was the team’s defense.
As the season began, they had only 1 regular defenseman from last year, Travis Gibbons, in the lineup. With Cullen Morin, Leo Jenner, Colin Archer, and Chris Owens graduating or moving on from last year’s team, and AUS all-rookie team member Geoff Schemitsch projected to be out for most of the first half with an injury. There were many questions about how the Axemen defense would fair, and rightfully so.
But the Axemen recruits Dan Poliziani, Stephen Woodworth, and Matt Pufahl have played exceptionally well in their first taste of AUS/CIS action. Still short on the backend, the Axemen moved two players who had played forward last year, in Tyler Ferry and Travis Randell, back to defense; Randell had seen action in 2012-13 as a defenceman for the Axemen. The two didn’t miss a beat on the blueline… at no time are we left thinking that they look like forwards playing defence, instead they looked like naturals on the blueline. 2nd year defenceman Chris Buonomo also saw action in four games in the first half of the season.Read more »