Defenseman Sam Senft had two goals and an assist and Roland Ponechal had a goal and assist to lead the Titans to a 5 – 1 win over the Bay State Bobcats in the Red Buckets home opener.
Senft opened the scoring at 7:25 into the opening period with assists from Jake Spangler and Brian Lupo to make it a 1 – 0 game.
The Titans took a 2 – 0 lead almost two minutes later. Joey Mataviesko intercepted a Bobcats pass just outside his own blueline and skated up along the near sideboard and into the offensive zone. As Mataviesko cut across the goalmouth, he backhanded a shot over Bay State’s netminder Braeden Bovey and into the net for this first goal on the season.
The Bobcats cut their deficit in half with 4:31 remaining in the second period when Michael Fritz beat Titans netminder Donavan Alfama for his first goal of the year.
The Titans pulled away in the third by scoring three unanswered goals.
Ponechal scored his first goal of the season at four minutes into the final period to give the Titans a 3 – 1 lead after he cut across the top of the slot and took a wrist shot that beat Bovey glove side.
A little over a minute later, the Titans took a 4 – 1 lead when Jacob Renbarger beat Bovvey short side for his first goal of the season with assists from Lupo and Senft.
Senft tallied his second goal of the game with eight minutes remaining to close out the scoring and make it a 5 – 1 game.
Alfama, who played extremely well throughout the game, stopped 34 of 35 shots by Bovvey turned aside 28 of 33. Click here for the box score.
The two teams will meet again today at 4:30PM at the Middletown Sports Complex.