Late game goal sinks Auburn

By Zack Bellerdine / The Citizen

Saturday, January 3, 2009 12:13 AM EST

AUBURN - The Auburn hockey team wasted no time in getting things started in the Savannah Bank Tournament at Casey Park, but were unable to finish it on Friday.
Brad Murdoch scored the Maroons first goal in the first 16 seconds of regulation on an assist by Jeremy Marginsky. After that, it took them only another minute and then some to score their second goal. That goal came from Reggie Townsend and was unassisted.

“Their defense moved to the blue lane and that allowed them to misplace the location of the puck,” Townsend said. “I put it in for the goal when I noticed they had mis-positioned themselves.”

Townsend assisted the final goal for the Maroons in the second period of their 4-3 loss to Penfield in the first round of the tournament. Auburn will play the loser of Mamaroneck and Shaker-Colonie in the consolation game, today.

With just under a minute left in regulation the Patriots James Sergeant scored the winning goal. Prior to that the Patriots tried numerous times to score, but key saves by goalie Steve Komanecky kept the tie in place.

“Steve is a very good athlete,” Maroons coach Mike Lowe said. “He's very capable of those big saves.”

Auburn missed out on several power play opportunities, as the Maroons fell for the seventh straight game.

“We still have a lot of hockey left,” Lowe said. “We can't get down. We need to improve on the defense side and can't miss so many assignments. At this level if you do that the opposing team will score.”

The momentum shifted from the Maroons to the Patriots in the final minutes after another penalty was called on the Maroons. They would finish with a total of 13 penalties.

“(Penfield) took advantage of our mistakes,” Lowe said “We need to play more disciplined. If we do that it won't allow our opponents to have those chances.”

The momentum shift also brought the Maroons back to their ways of inconsistent play on both sides, something that has been a problem for them all year.

“We can't play well for just two periods,” Lowe said. “We have to play well the full 45 minutes. We played great at times, but other times we didn't.”

“We're just going to worry about ourselves,” Lowe said. “We have enough talent and skill that we can do our own thing and not worry about the opposing team. We'll watch them and see what kind of tendencies they make. See if we can pick up on a few things and put it to use.”

Penfield was led by Sergeant, as he finished with two goals and an assist, while its goalie William Massey finished with 25 grabs.

“He made some very nice saves,” Lowe said. “We just didn't get the bounces. Sometimes that happens and it sure did tonight. There were a lot of momentum swings tonight. That's the case with a lot of high school sporting events. You just got to ride them out and they did. They took advantage of them.”

The Patriots took 31 shots on goal, while the Maroons had 28.

“This was one of our more offensive nights,” Lowe said. “I'm proud of our production on offense. If only we could have gotten a few more in the net.”

Auburn (2-11) will work on keeping players out of the penalty box in its game today. “We should have a good game tomorrow,” Townsend said. “We haven't had one in awhile.”

Patriots 4

Maroons 3

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