Middletown, NJ – In the opening game of the three-game weekend series, the Johnstown Tomahawks were defeated by the New Jersey Titans at Middletown Ice World on Friday night.
A little over four minutes into the game, Gavin Gulash opened the scoring for the Titans with his 11th of the season.
Ben Schmidling (assisted by Carson Briere) would score his 15th of the season just 30 seconds later to the tie game at one.
Johnstown would then take a 2-1 lead over a minute later, with Roman Kraemer (assisted by Nic Azarovitz and Joe Kile) netting his 18th of the season.
New Jersey’s Wade Novak ended the scoring in the opening period with his 10th of the season to tie the game at two.
Novak would strike again at the 15:27 mark of the second period with his second of the game, which put the Titans back on top 3-2.
Four and a half minutes into the third period, Tate Singleton would add to New Jersey’s lead with his 18th and put the Tomahawks down 4-2.
Johnstown would pull goalie Jack Leavy for the extra attacker towards the end of the third, but Novak would get the hat trick on an empty net goal with seven seconds remaining in regulation to put the game away.
