Roland Ponechal, Teito Ishigaki and Noah Scherff scored to give the visiting New Jersey Titans a 3 – 1 win over the Norwich Sea Captain last night. The victory snapped a Titans two-game losing streak.
Norwich’s Darrell Smith was called for elbowing at 3:52 into the first period to give the Titans the man advantage. Twenty-eight seconds later Ponechal gave the Titans a 1 – 0 lead with assists from Isaiah McKinney and Ishigaki. It was Ponechal’s team high ninth goal of the season.
The Titans doubled their lead at 6:07 of the second period. After Alex Blaszak won the draw deep inside the Red Buckets zone, the puck went over to Ryan Kenna. Kenna passed it up to Ishigaki at center ice. As Ishigaki gained the line towards the far side boards, he cut across the slot and took a wrist shot that beat Norwich’s goalie Andrew Yocum for sixth goal of the season.
The Sea Captains cut their deficit in half with one minute remaining in the middle stanza. After Scherff picked up the loose puck in own crease, he went to make an outlet pass up the near side boards, but it was intercepted by Trevor Souza at the point. Souza took a shot on net that was saved by Titans’ goalie Colin Freitas but Josh Manahan tapped in the rebound to make it a 2 – 1 game.
Scherff scored an empty net goal with twelve seconds remaining in the game to close out the scoring. Freitas stopped 52 of 53 shots in the while while Yocum turned aside 23 of 25. Click here for the box score.
The Titans next game is home on Thursday against the Long Beach Sharks at 12:30 PM.