JOHNSTOWN – Peter Morris scored the game-winning goal, and Will Baker stopped 32/34 in his 1st career start to propel the Johnstown Tomahawks (31-23-3) to victory against the Maryland Black Bears (35-17-4) by a score of 3-2 on Saturday night, to cap off the regular season schedule.
Well, the good news heading into Saturday was that the pressure of getting to the 4th place spot, was off. The bad news was that the Hawks were going to need a better effort in their last game before playoffs to give them a good feeling heading into next weekend.
The Tomahawks did just that, after Charlie Zetterkvist struck just one-minute in to give the Hawks the early 1-0 lead. Kalib Capecci and Markas Samenas were credited with the assists. The 1st period kept up the physical style from last night as both teams were sent to the box twice, but no blood was drawn on either power-play.
The shot total was low for the period as well with just ten total, five per side.
Heading into the 2nd period, Tomahawks goaltender Will Baker was going to have his hands full against the powerful Maryland squad. Baker, who was making his first home start for the Hawks this season was strong in the 1st, but it was only going to get tougher.
Baker went on to become to story of the 2nd period turning aside all 14 Black Bear shots to preserve the Hawks lead. The Tomahawks didn’t do as much as they probably wanted to when trying to build a more comfortable lead, generating just seven shots of their own in the period. However, one of those seven found its way to the back of the net off the stick of Adam Csabi to make it 2-0 late in period two. The goal was setup beautifully from Nick Jarmain and Peter Morris who made his NAHL debut in the game as well.
An exciting but emotional 3rd period was in store for the Tomahawks and their loyal home crowd. The regular season finale was down to its last 20-minutes and the Hawks were in the driver’s seat up 2-0.
However, after 40 solid minutes of hockey thus far, everything that could go wrong for the Hawks, did. The Black Bears came storming all the way back after two Tomahawks penalties in a span of 3:00 minutes, and scored not one, but two power-play goals to tie the game and stun the crowd.
Although there were no real stakes to the final 10-minutes, given that the Black Bears had already clinched a first-round bye in the NAHL playoffs, the Tomahawks wanted to play a solid 20-minutes to head into the postseason.
At the 6:00 mark of the final frame, like Baker – another unlikely hero showed up for the Tomahawks as fellow NAHL rookie, Peter Morris finished off a slick 2-on-1 with Adam Csabi to send the home crowd into a frenzy.
The goal would end up holding strong as the Tomahawks went on to capture the 3-2 nail-biting victory on home-ice to wrap up the regular season.
Your Johnstown Tomahawks are headed to the playoffs! Stay tuned to all of our social media pages for updates on the game information next weekend. If you can’t make it to the game, catch all the action live on NATV.COM. Stay connected with your Johnstown Tomahawks by following us on social media @tomahawkshockey.
BY: DREW P. PFEIL | drew@johnstowntomahawks.com