JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – A pair of third-period goals, clustered less than 90 seconds apart spelled doom for the Johnstown Tomahawks as the Philadelphia Rebels skated away with a 5-3 victory Friday at 1st Summit Arena @ Cambria County War Memorial.
Philadelphia broke a 3-all tie at the 8:27 mark of the third as Broxton Ingle swooped in from the right faceoff circle to beat Nikita Oleksiienko high to his stick side. Jordan Brothers helped to set up the power-play tally.
At 9:45, Alex Lunski completed a tic-tac-toe sequence when he sent Charlie Spencer’s sweeping pass across the crease into the net. Dylan Moran also picked up a helper.
The two-goal cluster came after the Tomahawks rallied from three goals down in the second with a 1-2 punch that struck in a 53-second span.
Nick Jarmain – scoring his 17th goal of the season – finished a 2-on-1 rush with Emerson Marshall assisting at 17:47. Charlie Zetterkvist’s redirection of a Reed Richeson shot coming at 18:40 knotted the game at 3-all. Jacob Ingstrup also assisted on Zetterkvist’s 10th of the campaign.
“I think what led to those goals was driving the nets,” Tomahawks coach Adam Houli said.
“Stopping on the net, stuff that we talked about all week, and that’s what led to those goals.”
While Johnstown overcame its sluggish start, Philadelphia’s reply in the third was too much to overcome.
“They played really well tonight,” Houli said. “A lot of credit there, credit to their staff.
“They buried their chances.
“We had no response to that.
“We got to be better than what we were tonight.”
The furious finish by the Rebels punctuated a game that was started by the guests controlling play for most of the first 30 minutes.
Philadelphia recorded 10 of the game’s first 11 shots on goal with their 10th staking the guests to a 1-0 lead when Brayton Frick redirected Marshall Swanson’s shot from the right point, sneaking it past Oleksilenko at 9:38 of the first period. Ryan Ickes also assisted on Frick’s seventh of the season.
The Rebels ran the lead to 3-0 in the second period when a 2-on-1 rush led to Charlie Spencer beating Oleksiienko from the right faceoff circle after taking a feed from Moran at 4:32.
Brothers followed at 7:14 when he poked home a rebound from a Billy Sheridan shot. Luke Janviriya also assisted on Philadelphia’s third strike.
“We were trying to do it individually,” Houli said. “We didn’t take it as a team approach, and then when that switched and we got the first goal, all of a sudden we wanted to go all team.
“We played really well off of that. The first 30 minutes, we got too individual. We weren’t buying into what we wanted to do all week, and that cost us.”
Johnstown opened its rally at 10:45 of the second when Kaleb Capecci took a lead pass from Emerson Marshall before flipping it past Ilja Nikitins for his fourth of the season. Shane Tronoski also assisted on the Tomahawks’ lid-lifter.
Even with the comeback, Philadelphia more than doubled Johns- town’s total shots on goal, registering 43 to the Tomahawks’ 20.
Fixing that discrepancy is reverting to executing the team’s philosophical approach.
“We got to continue to do what we do,” Houli said. “Get pucks in deep, work in the corners where we had success, especially in that last 10 minutes of second period. We gotta watch it and believe it tomorrow morning, and then hopefully Saturday night we apply that to where we gotta go.”
Shawn Curtis is a reporter for The Tribune-Democrat. He can be reached at (814) 532-5085. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnCurtis430.
