Titans & Brahmas Take Wednesday by Storm

Tony Haas

Long Beach 1 @ New Jersey 6 - The New Jersey Titans stunned the red-hot Long Beach Sharks in a Wednesday matinee East Division matchup. Despite taking an early lead, the Sharks could not manage to generate any further offense and gave up a litany of scoring chances which ultimately conveyed, en route to the Titans’ 12th victory of the season. Caden Shafer got the afternoon started after he was able to break loose, find open ice and score on the breakaway to score the only Long Beach goal of the game. Just past the midpoint of the period, Ivan Korshikov capitalized on a Sharks miscue that led to a shorthanded breakaway goal to even the score. Not long after, Eduard Gubeladze scored his fifth goal of the season with a shot from the point on the man advantage. With a minute and a half remaining in the first period, Jackson Dougherty showcased some high-level skating ability and worked his way to the front of the net and score the third Titans goal of the game. At around the midpoint of the second frame, Alan O'Connor popped the goaltenders bottle out of the net for his first goal in the NA3HL and to extend the lead to 4-1. Mikhail Mishin continued to pile on with an excellent feed from Yosef Pievsky that allowed Mishin to get in alone on the goaltender. The final goal of the contest came in the third period from Dewight Singleton, and the Titans completed the upset on home ice. As many say, good things happen when you get pucks at the net. In this bout, the Titans posted 37 shots on goal, 14 more than the opposing Sharks. Sometimes you can get a favorable bounce, other times you can use traffic in front of the net to your advantage. For the Titans, they saw goals come in a number of different ways. Pair that with some solid defensive structure and you have an outstanding formula to win hockey games with, something the Titans hope to continue to do as they continue to claw their way out of the depths of the East.

Texas (B) 6 @ Texas (R) 0 - The Texas Brahmas took an impressive victory on the road against the Texas Roadrunners. With both teams sitting at second in their respective divisions, we got to see two highly competitive teams go toe-to-toe in a largely uncompetitive hockey game. The first period came and went with no scoring, but the Brahmas were laying on the pressure with a 17-4 advantage in the shot department. Finally, this pressure conveyed in the second period, and it did so quickly. Not even two minutes into the frame, Logan Kassulat wrangled the puck in the slot and wired it home for his first goal in the NA3HL. Some time passed and the Brahmas showcased some excellent passing that led to Benjamin Humphreys scoring the second Brahmas tally. Charlie Wilson kept the scoring up just two minutes later and Alex Morris followed as the Brahmas took total control of this game with a monster four goal period. They kept their foot on the gas at the start of the third period with a great forecheck that led to a John Scharf snipe for goal number five on the day. With 5:53 remaining in the contest, Kayden Jones scored with a low shot on net, and the Brahmas rode their six goal lead until the final buzzer.