X-Men suffer exhibition loss to Maine

The X-Men hockey team made a quick trip south of the border Tuesday evening to play an exhibition game against the University of Maine Black Bears in Orono and ended up on the short end of a 4-1 game.

The Black Bears got out to a 2-0 first period lead which the X-Men were unable to overcome. Black Bears goals came off the sticks of Will Merchant (Jon Swavely, Bill Norman) and Devin Shore (Dan Renouf, Eric Schurhamer) at 5:39 and 10:47 of the opening frame.

Maine outshot StFX 10-7 in the first period.

The home team increased their lead to 3-0 with a goal by Norman 9:09 into the second period, assisted by Stu Higgins and Brice O'Connor.

Rob Slaney got the X-Men on the board a minute and a half later with Jason Bast assisting on the play to pull them to within 3-1. 

StFX held a slight edge in shots in the second period at 10-9.

The lone scoring in the third came from Maine's Merchant, his second of the game, unassisted at 15:37. He earned first star status with Black Bears goaltender Dan Sullian as the second star and StFX goalie Morgan Clark picking up third star honors.

Clark made 21 saves in the StFX net as he played the latter half of the game, letting in the single third period goal. Drew Owsley played the opening half for the X-Men, recording 11 saves.

The Black Bears outshot the X-Men by a 36-29 margin. Matt Strickroot (3 saves) played just over two minutes in goal while Sullian played the remainder with 25 saves.

StFX was 0 for 3 on the power play while Maine was 0 for 1. The X-Men only had two minor infractions on the evening.

The teams played on pink ice as it was a breast cancer fundraiser game for the University of Maine.

The X-Men (9-8-1) will resume AUS regular season action this coming Friday, Jan. 17th when they host the UPEI Panthers (8-7-1) at 7:00 pm at the StFX Keating Centre.