Aquinas Holds off Livonia-Avon in Season Opener
March 28, 2019 - After a hard-fought first half, Aquinas pulled ahead in the opening of the third quarter to defeat Livonia-Avon 12-11. The Little Irish scored four unanswered goals to pull ahead from 4-4 to 8-4 in a little less than 3 minutes. They held that lead for most of the third quarter, before Livonia-Avon fought back in the final five minutes of quarter with their own four goal stretch. The game was tied 8-8 with under a minute in the third quarter. Aquinas's Joey Sciortino scored with 0:04 left on the clock to give the Little Irish the 9-8 lead going into the final 12 minutes. After that they held off the Lakers for the victory.
Livonia-Avon opened the scoring with Matthew Connor feeding Roman Volpe. Aquinas' Jake Reed responded with an unassisted goal. The team continued to go back and forth with neither team taking more than a one goal lead for the first 24 minutes. Aquinas led 5-4 going into halftime off an unassisted goal form Sebastian Gimeli. In the third quarter they continued their scoring streak and with 10:23 remaining Gimeli scored his second to put Aquinas up 8-4.
Livonia-Avon had trouble getting things started for the next six minutes. Joel Smith scored the first of his two goals with 4:34 on the clock. Ninety seconds later, Ryan Lambert scored off a feed from Ryan Haugh to record with 100th Career goal. The goal started off a three-goal streak for Lambert (assisted to Haugh, Smith and Haugh). The Little Irish never let up the pressure and although the Lakers forced the tie at 8-8, it was the last tie of the game. Lambert added two late goals at 1:31 and 0:02 but the Lakers could not force overtime.
Gimeli led his team in groundballs with 10 and finished 18/24 at the face-off. LSM Conor Kelly recorded five ground balls and a take for the Little Irish. In the cage, Gavin Conlan recorded five saves. For Livonia-Avon, Caleb Gardner led with nine ground balls and Justin Skelly led with 3 takes. In the cage, Isaac Sweet recorded nine saves.
