Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – The captain came to the rescue for the MacEwan Griffins on Friday night.
After Concordia opened the scoring on an early third-period powerplay, MacEwan's Cam Gotaas scored twice in less than 90 seconds as the Griffins pulled a 2-1 victory out of the jaws of defeat on Friday night at Clareview Arena.
It was the third and fourth goals of the season for the fourth-year veteran, who continues to steer the ship for a young Griffins team still trying to find its way in the early part of the 2019-20 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference season.
"That's when he plays his best hockey is when the (result's) on the line in tight games," said interim head coach Sean Ringrose, whose team improved to 2-1-0-0 on the campaign with the win. "He's doing a great job in setting an example and leading the young crew that we have. He's been great for us and I'm sure he'll continue to be that way."
Concordia came into the game undefeated after sweeping Portage on the opening weekend of the season. And they looked to be on their way to a third-straight win after Adam Moghrabi finally solved Marc-Olivier Daigle to open the scoring 1:19 into the final period on the powerplay.
"We had some mistakes in our game tonight that we've got to clean up for tomorrow, but I really liked how our guys competed in the second half of the game," said Ringrose. "We clawed our way back in a hard-fought game and ended up getting the win tonight.
Daigle made 29 saves for his second win of the season, while his Thunder counterpart Tanner McCorriston was less busy in stopping 22 of 24.
Gotaas beat him twice, the first coming just 48 seconds after Moghrabi's tally when the Griffins' captain potted a rebound. Just 1:27 after that, he one-timed a feed from Bryan Arneson past McCorriston for the game-winner.
Not a perfect win for the Griffins, but they'll take it.
"It's still early in the season and there's a whole lot of things we're still working on as a young group," said Ringrose. "I think we'll just continue to go game by game working through that stuff."
Their next chance is in the rematch between the Edmonton rivals. Concordia will visit MacEwan at the Downtown Community Arena on Saturday at 6 p.m. (ACAC TV).
