HALIFAX, N.S. - Brandon Glover (Victoria, BC) was nearly perfect in between the pipes as the Acadia Axemen defeated the Saint Mary's Huskies 2-1, to tie the Subway AUS best of five semifinal series at two games apiece, Tuesday night at the Halifax Forum in front of a crowd of 1612.
Glover earned the Subway Player of the Game honours with the help of a defensive unit that kept most shots at a distance and cleared the puck well in moments of Huskie pressure.
The Huskies got on the board first, when Matt Tipoff (Toronto, ON) scored on the powerplay at 7:55, with assists from Steven Shipley (Ilderton, ON) and Stephen Johnston (Guelph, ON), to give the Huskies a 1-0 lead.
Acadia answered back when Brett Thompson (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) potted a powerplay marker at 14:24, assisted by Matthew Pufahl (Saskatoon, SK) and Remy Giftopoulos (Ancaster, ON), to tie the game at 1-1 after the first period.
The Axemen took the lead in the second very quickly, when Giftopoulos tallied at 0:09 to put the Axemen up 2-1. The early Axemen goal was the only goal in the 2nd. After 40 mintues of the play it remained 2-1.
The third period saw a flurry of shots on both sides, with Acadia out-shooting the Huskies 9-8, but neither team was able to score.
With 3:19 remaining in the third period, tensions for Acadia fans rose exponetially when Axeman Travis Gibbons was assessed a high sticking penalty. The timing of the penalty allowed the Huskies to go on the offensive in the closing minutes of the game and eventually having six attackers after pulling their goalie. Acadia was able to hold off the last gasp by the Huskies.
The Axemen were assessed 12 minutes in penalties on six infractions compared to Saint Mary's 10 minutes on five infractions
The Axemen outshot the Huskies 31-25. Glover made 24 saves to get the win in net for the Axemen and Anthony Peters (Blyth, ON) stopped 29 shots in goal for the Huskies.
The fifth and deciding game of the semi-final series will be played Thursday night at 7:00 pm in Wolfville. The other semi-final series between UNB and StFX will be settled on Thursday too as the X-Men visit Fredericton for game five. If StFX wins the five game semi-final series on Thursday, a consolation best of three series will be played between UNB and the loser of Acadia versus Saint Mary's to decide on who the third AUS team will be attending the CIS championships hosted by StFX at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax beginning March 12.
Provided by Saint Mary's Sports Information