By WJBC staff
Bloomington, IL – In their first meeting of the season, the Bloomington Thunder fell in a hard fought game to the Tri-City Storm on their first annual ‘Guns & Hoses’ night. After two scoreless periods, the Storm took home the win with a final score of 1-0. Despite the loss, the Thunder supported Bloomington-Normal’s firefighters and police officers and raising money for the Special Olympics of Illinois from the post game specialty jersey auction.
Both teams skated through the first period without netting the puck. Thunder goalie Hayden Lavigne (University of Michigan) made some big saves in the first, while the shots on goal favored Bloomington 11-9. Going into the second, the score remained at zero on both sides. The Thunder kept up their defensive fight, keeping the Storm at bay with blocked shots and solid defensive play.
“Hayden did what he needed to do on the back end and gave us a chance to win it, but we didn’t start playing desperate hockey until there was 4 minutes left to play,” said Head Coach Dennis Williams after the game. “You got to play that way for 60 minutes.”
The third period started off scoreless. Halfway through the period there was some action when Bloomington forward Jake Slaker and Tri-City forward Connor Valesano were sent to the box for roughing. With 11:01 up on the clock, Storm forward Matthew Freytag (University of Wisconsin) potted the first goal of the night past Lavigne on a back door feed from Mason Appleton (Notre Dame Academy). At the 9:28 mark, Vince Pedrie (Quinnipiac University) snuck the puck past the storm, but the goal was called off due to high sticking. In a last effort to tie up the game, the Thunder pulled Lavigne with 1:16 left in the game.
Tri-City goalie Alec Dillon (Rensselaer Polytechnic, Los Angeles Kings) took home the win for the Storm making 25 saves on 25 shots for his third shutout of the season. Lavigne picked up the close loss making 22 saves on 23 shots, giving him a 1-1-0 record and 59 saves in three games with the Thunder.
When asked if there were any major changes that needed to be made for tomorrow’s rematch, Williams immediately denied any urgency.
“Nothing,” he said. “We had our chances and we didn’t score. We outshot them with 25 shots on net and we didn’t score.”
