Goals galore
WARRENDALE — Goals came in bunches for the Mars hockey team Tuesday night and with them came the team's fifth victory of the season.
Seven different Planets scored goals, with Tyler Whiteford, Matt Wingert, Derek Sitterly and Jake Robash each scoring two goals in an 11-1 win over Sewickley Academy at the BladeRunners Ice Complex.
Mars led 4-0 after one period and 6-0 entering the final 15 minutes.
The Planets committed 11 penalties, most of them coming after the outcome of the game had been decided.
"I think we lost our focus," said Mars coach Tim Coleman. "It's hard to keep your focus when you're ahead by that many goals. But we have to stay focused no matter what the score is."
The Planets faced a 4-on-3 disadvantage once and were on the short end of a 5-on-3 twice.
The Panthers' one goal came on the second 5-on-3, when Mike Tully beat Mars backup goalie Nick Mathlage to cut the Planets lead to 6-1 with 11:30 left in the final period.
From there, the Planets (5-1) scored the final five goals, including three in the final 5:01 of play.
<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE60811124.MOV" width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>"Of the 10 goals we have given up this season, eight of them have come while we were shorthanded," said Coleman, "so, we do have to work on it and improve on our penalty killing."Rob Sigurdsson, Conrad Thibault and Steve Tracy scored one goal each for the Planets.Just 1:36 into the game, Whiteford scored the first of his two goals on a wrist shot just inside the blue line.Wingert and Sigurdsson followed with goals, and Whiteford capped the period with another tally with 5:54 left in the opening period.The lopsided score allowed Coleman to get Mathlage some playing time. The goalie came in with 5:08 remaining in the second period to replace starter Martin Lamneck, who made six saves in his abbreviated appearance.Mathlage stopped five of the six shots he faced."Nick had not played varsity before tonight," said Coleman. "He is the starting goalie for the junior varsity team. I saw an opportunity to get him in and expose him to the speed of the varsity game."Jim Compliment made 12 saves for the Panthers (3-6), who dressed only 10 players."We've got a couple of tough games coming up," said Coleman. "We play Bishop McCort here next Friday. That's the team we beat in the Penguins Cup semifinals last year."I'm sure their kids remember that game a bit more clearly than we do and they'll be looking for revenge."
