WAXERS TURN
AWAY MERCHANTS IN FIRST APPEARANCE ON HOME ICE
The 2002-03 Waxers hit home ice Wednesday night, their
first chance to show the hometown the new-look blue and white squad.
After a little bit of a slow start in the first 5-8 minutes the Waxers
recovered and dominated the play for much of the night, hitting the iron
trice and missing another chance as the puck rolled along the red line
behind the Milton tender after Kevin Cribari's drive trickled
through but not quite far enough. Still the Waxers put up five to take a
5-4 win after surviving a desperate Milton 6-man attack in the final
minute.
Milton struck first just under 4 minutes in to the game to jump out
to a short lived 1-0 lead. The Waxers battled back, scoring
their first of two powerplay markers on the evening when Cribari fed Nathaniel
Brooks on the halfboards and his slapper beat the Milton tender
over the glove to tie the game. Just over 6 minutes later, with
4:48 left in the period, Cribari scored a powerplay goal of his own
while the Waxers were on a 5-on-3, stuffing home a rebound off a Pat
Porretta shot from the slot. The first ended 2-1 for the
Waxers.
The second period was scoreless for the first 14 minutes before the
teams exchanged a pair of goals each in 2:07 worth of hockey.
Milton tied the game at 2-2 with their only powerplay goal of the
night with 5:59 left in the second. Ryan Steane gave the
Waxers the lead again, 1:22 later when he roofed home a rebound after
a pretty three way passing play started by Mark Menonte and Tony
Rossi. Just 30 seconds later, the score was tied again as
Milton scored right from the faceoff deep in Markham territory.
It took just 17 seconds for the Waxers to regain the lead, and the
outburst to stop, when Jaoquin Chavira slammed home a centering pass
from Liam Bowen for the 4-3 lead heading in to the final
period.
It took less than 4 minutes for the game to be tied 4-4 as Milton
scored just 3:50 in to the period. The Waxers took the lead for
good with under 7 minutes left to play when Porretta and Cribari
combined for the winning goal. Some nice cycling created a
chance for Porretta to step out in front of the net and his low hard
wrist shot eluded the goalie and provided the victory.
Anthony Guadagnolo played the entire game for the Waxers in
net to earn the victory.
The Waxers next return to action on September 6, 2002 when they
travel to Milton to complete the home-and-home exhibition
series. Their next home game is September 8 when they host the
Newmarket Hurricanes at 7:30 pm.
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