Johnstown, Pa – The Johnstown Tomahawks hosted the New Jersey Titans at the 1st Summit Arena @ Cambria County War Memorial for what was only Johnstown’s third home game of the season.
In the first period, Johnstown came out with the physical play and generated several quality scoring chances, including a slap shot from in tight by Carson Briere, but New Jersey Titan’s netminder, Brandon Perrone was equal to the task making a big glove save.
The game remained scoreless until the 7:35 mark when New Jersey struck first. After an initial shot on net, Kyle Jeffers picked up the loose puck and buried it in the wide-open net. The assists went to Hunter Alden and Tate Singleton.
Already with the 1-0 lead, New Jersey would add another. Tate Singleton smacked a puck out of mid-air directly into the back of the end. The goal came on the power play and was assisted by Todd Goehring and Tyler Antonucci. The goal was scored at 13:32.
Johnstown, with a power play of their own, was able to score a goal at 16:45 to cut the Titans’ lead to 2-1. Ben Schmidling hammered home a loose puck behind Perrone for the tally. The assists went to Brendan White and David Schmidling.
New Jersey would take the 2-1 lead into the first intermission.
The Titans would score two goals in the second period giving them a 4-1 lead over the Tomahawks.
First, Nick Boyagian would score on the power play after he took a shot from the goal line and beat Johnstown netminder, Jack Leavy, glove side. The assists went to Hunter Alden and Spencer Stanley at 3:46.
Then the Titans would score a shorthanded goal a little more than a minute later. On a two-on-one, Wade Novak redirected a pass from Ryan Naumovski passed Leavy to give New Jersey the three-goal lead.
This fourth goal of the night by New Jersey caused Tomahawks’ head coach, Mike Letizia, to pull Jack Leavy from the net in favor of Britt League.
Johnstown would find themselves with several scoring chances and at 18:01 of the second period were able to score their second goal of the game. Newcomer, Andy Nedeljkovic scored his first goal of the season after receiving a great cross-crease pass from Joe Kile. Ott picked up the other assist on the goal which was his first point since returning to the Tomahawks’ lineup.
Johnstown had a handful of other scoring chances but couldn’t put another puck passed the Titans’ goalie before the horn sounded ending the second period.
New Jersey was up 4-2 after two periods of play.
In the third period, the Tomahawks found the ice tilted in their favor as they controlled the play and had a ton of quality scoring chances throughout the third period.
With the play one-sided it was New Jersey that found themselves extending their lead while on the power play. Todd Goehring beat Britt League blocker side from the faceoff circle to give the Titans a 5-2 lead. The assists went to Hunter Alden and Nick Boyagian.
Johnstown wouldn’t give up and while on their own power play Samuel Solensky netted the team’s third goal of the game. Joey Kile made a cross ice pass to Solensky and he was able to tap the puck into the net. Ott received the second assist on the play.
In the last moments, New Jersey was able to put a puck in Johnstown’s empty net giving them the 6-3 lead, which would also become the final score.