X-Men in tough against Reds

FREDERICTON, NB - The U SPORTS No. 2 UNB Reds scored early and scored often Saturday night, beating the visiting StFX X-Men 8-1.

The big win came a night after the Reds beat the Dal Tigers 10-0.

Stephen Anderson (Morell, PE) scored twice in the win, including the first goal of the game, just 44 seconds into the first period, and was named first star and Subway Player of the Game.

"When Goulet sets me up in front of the net like that, it's not too hard to put those away," said Anderson, of the first of his two goals.

The Reds added to their lead, working on an extended power-play, just past the 12:00 mark of the first.

Tyler Boland (St. John's, NL) fed Alex Goulet (Disraeli, QC) in the slot. Goulet's one-timer found the back of the next, giving the home team a 2-0 advantage.

Less than a minute later, Mark Simpson (Rothesay, NB) scored to make it 3-0 UNB.

The Reds kept the pressure on in the second period.

Patrick Watling (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) scored a pair of goals 63 seconds apart, chasing Joseph Raaymakers (Chatham, ON) from the X-Men net.

Blade Mann-Dixon (Antigonish, NS) took over, but gave up Anderson's second goal of the game and James McEwan's (Chatham, ON) first, as UNB surged ahead 7-0.

Mark Tremaine (Dartmouth, NS) scored mid-way through the third period for the X-Men, but it was too little, too late.

Oliver Cooper (Fredericton, NB) added UNB's eighth goal at the 15:26 mark.

13 Reds registered points in the win, including seven players who had multi-point nights.

Boland finished with three assists, while Watling had an assist with his two goals.

"We can take some confidence from this, for sure," said Anderson, of the Reds big weekend. "We've got a lot of guys scoring, me included. I had a bit of a slow start, but it's nice to see a few of them catch the twine. I don't think we change too much, we're going to have weekends like that and we're going to have weekends where we struggle to score, so I think we just keep using our work ethic, keep buying in and hopefully the results come."

Insisting he wasn't making excuses, X-Men head coach Brad Peddle pointed out his team has been playing without several regulars.

"We can't continue to play with three lines, night after night after night. It's obvious. It's hurting how we play," said Peddle. "We've lost a lot of close games with a depleted bench, but we can't come in here and spot them a 3-0 lead with three lines and expect it's going to be easy to come back."

Samuel Harvey (Alma, QC) stopped 13 of the 14 shots he faced in the UNB net, including a penalty shot awarded to X's Matthew Graham (Bedford, NS).

The Reds outshot the X-Men 53-14.

The Reds, now 12-3, go on the road next weekend. They visit Acadia on Friday. Game time is 7:00pm.

The X-Men, now 6-8-2, visit Dalhousie on Wednesday.

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Recap courtesy Andy Campbell, UNB Athletics