AUBURN – Greely forward Sam Sheldon had already beaten Leavitt netminder Richard Thibault high to the glove side twice in the third period to knot the score at five, so when Justin Rouillard gave him another lead, Thibault was determined not to let it happen again.
Sure enough, with 5:25 to play in regulation, Sheldon bore down on Thibault. This time, the red light would stay dormant.
“I got it right in the arm, right under the glove,” said Thibault. “I just followed his body, his movement. I saw him tweak to the right and I got it.”
Thibault made 33 saves, including 10 in the third period, and Cory Maillet and Justin Rouillard scored two goals each to lead Leavitt to a 7-5 win over visiting Greely at Ingersoll Arena on Wednesday.
“I knew Richard could come up big,” said Leavitt coach Ron Rouillard. “I knew that as long as he had his self-confidence, he’d do O.K. At the beginning of the year, he was a little reluctant. Once he got his first win, that’s how he’s played for us so far.”
On the other bench, Greely was in an unfamiliar position, especially with all-league goaltender Billy Bolduc between the pipes.
“I think if you talked to him, even Billy would admit that this wasn’t his best game,” said Greely coach Barry Mothes. “I didn’t expect a 7-5 game. I think we did a lot of good things on the offensive side of the puck. We had five (goals), and I think we could have had nine or 10, but we made a couple of bad turnovers inside our blue line that cost us and we just didn’t play good one-on-one defense.”
Tyler King got things going for Greely early with an unassisted goal at 3:20 of the opening frame, and Brad Allen made it 2-0 on a feed from King at 10:49.
The Hornets (2-0) cut the Rangers’ lead in half at 12:41 on Maillet’s first goal of the night, but Greely once again led by two early in the second thanks to a Drew Bowden tally.
Leavitt managed a tie by the end of the middle frame on goals from Justin Rouillard and Chris Cloutier, and exploded for two early goals less than a minute apart in the third to take its first lead.
Sheldon responded with a goal one minute after that, and a minute later he potted another to tie the score. After Justin Rouillard gave the Hornets their next lead, though, the goal-scoring stopped until Evan Longchamps potted an empty-netter with 20 ticks left on the clock to seal the Leavitt win.
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