Tigers fall to fourth place in MVCHA play after loss against Columbia
EAST ALTON – Edwardsville entered their Tuesday night Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association game against Columbia in a second-place tie with Bethalto, with the Eagles a point behind in the overall MVCHA standings tied with Freeburg/Waterloo.
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By the time the game was over, the Tigers had dropped into fourth, a point ahead of Freeburg, thanks to a 4-2 Eagle win at East Alton Ice Arena.
The win put the Tigers at 9-2-2 (20 points), two points behind O'Fallon and Bethalto (who defeated East Alton-Wood River earlier in the evening), who have 22 points each (teams get two points in the standings for a win and one point each for a draw) and a point behind the Eagles, who went to 10-4-1 (21 points), with the Jan. 3 division into Class 2A and 1A looming in the league. Freeburg/Waterloo is fifth at 19 points (the Bulldogs were scheduled to play Highland in Granite City Tuesday night; the result was not available) and Collinsville is sixth at 17 points.
The top six teams will be placed in Class 2A after the Jan. 3 games, with the bottom six teams going to Class 1A; the teams will play each other once in their divisions before the MVCHA playoffs get under way in February.
“It was not very good in all aspects of the game,” said Tiger coach Jason Walker. “The first period was OK; we needed to go out there and outskate a team that definitely has some skill players. We didn't do that. I thought we let them off the hook the first period as far as our level of compete.
“Then we had penalty trouble. That's been the story for us the last few games; we've got to do a better job out of staying out of the (penalty) box. We had some lazy penalties in there, some questionable penalties. We have to adjust to the (officiating) and we haven't done that yet. It's something we've got to get better at or we're going to get the same result.”
“We started off the season kind of slow,” said Columbia coach Kevin Feager. “We've been on a roll; I think we're 6-0-1 in our last seven (games) and we need to keep riding that; I think this pretty much locked us up into being in the 2A division, so we know we've got five tough games coming up here real soon.
“We know they're always tough; it's a good test, especially that the season's getting closer to being over and you need tests like this.”
The Tigers got out ahead late in the first period when, with Ryan Hofstetter off for checking from behind, Andrew LaRose slid the puck over to Jordan Crow, who was left alone in the slot and beat Chase Taake to the left to put EHS up 1-0 through the first 14 minutes. Jacob Foley then scored an unassisted goal early in the second period to extend the EHS lead to 2-0.
Columbia halved the lead with 7:45 left in the second when Hudson Miller found Garrett Poole near the goal; Poole then scored past Johnpaul Twombly; nearly a minute and a half later when Cole Graves tied proceedings off an assist from Jacob Matthews. A series of penalties was called on both teams in the late going in the second period, the result of which put Columbia on a power play, the end result of which saw Poole score his second goal of the game from a Sean Hofstetter assist with 47.2 seconds left, putting Columbia ahead for the first time.
Columbia got another power-play goal early in the third, when Hofstetter scored 35 seconds into the period from Ryan Hofstetter and Poole. The Tigers had one last chance in the late going when, down 4-2, they went on a power play themselves and pulled Twombly for an extra attacker; Columbia's defense was equal to the challenge and the Tigers could not get a shot off before the siren sounded.
Edwardsville had 23 shots on goal, with Taake turning back 21; Columbia had 13 shots on goal, with Twombly recording nine saves.
Edwardsville meets up with Belleville for a 7:15 p.m. Thursday game at East Alton.
BETHALTO 10, EAST ALTON-WOOD RIVER 5: Bethalto lifted themselves into a first-place tie with O'Fallon thanks to a 10-5 win over East Alton-Wood River in Tuesday's curtain-raiser at East Alton Ice Arena.
The win put Bethalto at 10-3-2 (22 points) on the year, tying them for first with the Panthers, pending their Tuesday night result against Collinsville at Granite City; the result from that game was not available. EAWR fell to 1-14-0 (two points) on the season.
Bethalto got out to a 6-2 lead through the first period on the strength of three Jayden Kahl goals and two Anthony Russo goals; Joe Watson had the other first-period goal for Bethalto. Watson ended up with a hat trick for Bethalto and Kahl scored four goals, with Russo also scoring three.
Kaleb Harrop scored four times for the Oilers, with the other goal coming from Griffin Parko.
Bethalto and EAWR close out the first part of their regular season schedules next week, Bethalto meeting Edwardsville at 8:45 p.m. Monday at EAIA and the Oilers taking on Granite City at Wilson Park Ice Rink in Granite City at 6:50 p.m. Tuesday.
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