By: Lauren McQuillan, Howlings
FAIRFIELD, CT – The Sacred Heart Pioneers (8-7-2, 7-5-1 AHA) rode a stand-out 22-save performance from Ajeet Gundarah and received tallies from four different goal scorers to defeat the Army Black Nights (5-10-0, 5-7-0 AHA) 4-0 in a rare Tuesday night contest at the Martire Family Arena.
The Pioneers scored twice in 73 seconds late in the first period.
At 16:44, off a 2-on-1, Reid Pabich started the play with a pass to Felix Trudeau. He went wide and passed the puck across to Mikey Adamson at the back post. Adamson received the pass and quickly shot the puck into the back of the net.
To finish the period, Michael Rubin was at the left point and sent the puck down low to Paul Minnehan. He then found Matthew Guerra low in the left circle for a beautiful snipe that went off Army goalie JJ Cataldo at 17:57, making it 2-0 at the first intermission. Shots favoring the Pioneers 16-2.
Army outshot the Pioneers 10-4 in the second period but could not put one past Gundarah.
The Pioneers would go on to add two more in the third period.
The first came early in the third period when Marcus Joughin intercepted a pass and moved the puck ahead to Cole Galata. He then sent a long pass back to Joughin, who came in and batted the puck into the net to score the first goal of his Junior campaign.
At 15:31, Army pulled Cataldo for an extra attacker, but the move would backfire. Sixty seconds later, Felix Trudeau netted an empty netter for the final goal of the contest off a pass from Max Dorrington.
The Pioneers look to build off this win when they play two games against Canisius. Then, they’ll follow that contest with a single game against American International College to finish the 2024 portion of their season.
The Pioneers will start the 2025 half of their season on January 3rd at 7 PM against Air Force as they kick it off with their Youth Weekend.
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