SOUTH COUNTY • Perhaps the season's first snowstorm had the Oakville hockey team feeling a bit sluggish at the outset of Thursday's game.
Down two goals before the game was five minutes old to a team they had defeated by seven earlier this season, the Tigers rebounded to score eight of the final nine goals in 8-3 win over Kirkwood in a Mid-States Club Hockey Association Suburban Southwest Division game at the Kennedy Recreation Complex.
"I knew we weren't going to give up after they scored two goals," Oakville senior co-captain Tommy Heinzman said.
With its seventh victory in the last eight games, division-leading Oakville improved to 12-3-1 overall and 6-0-1 in division play. Meanwhile, Kirkwood dropped its fourth straight game to fall to 7-8-1 and 2-4-1.
"We're not being able to sustain three periods of play consistently," Pioneers coach Greg "Cookie" Griffin said. "It's just kind of frustrating for coaches and players. They've got to compete for the entire 45 minutes."
Kirkwood opened the scoring with a power-play goal 2 minutes, 33 seconds into the game when captain Logan Drake's shot hit an Oakville defenseman in front and deflected past goalie Zach Jost.
Drake had a hand in the second Pioneers goal as well when he sent a pass in front to Edward Hoganson, whose wrist shot beat Jost at the 4:59 mark.
Just like that, Kirkwood had a 2-0 lead on a team it had lost to 7-0 on Nov. 25.
"The feeling on the bench down 2-0 was we just had to stay positive and stick to our game plan," Stephens said. "Once you pop that first one, it's a little sigh of relief."
Oakville got back into the game with a pair of goals just 38 seconds apart.
Steve Farina banged home a rebound on the doorstep to put the Tigers on the board at the 7:56 mark, and Troy Korte finished off an odd-man rush with a goal from the slot at 8:34.
The Pioneers regained the lead with 1:34 to go in the first period when Nicholas Chiodini poked home a rebound for his team-leading 16th goal of the season.
It stayed that way through the first 9:25 of the second period before the Tigers finally tied it again on a short-handed goal. Kirkwood goalie Max Hirbe made the initial save, but had the puck pop to Heinzman, who batted it in out of mid-air for his team-high 16th goal of the season.
"I just waited for it to come down and hit it at the right moment," Heinzman said. "I got lucky."
Charles Freshman -- who, yes, is a freshman -- then netted a pair of goals to put the Tigers in front.
The first came at the 11:49 mark of the second period when he knocked in the rebound of a Brendan Coon shot for Oakville's first lead of the game at 4-3. The second came on a power play 1:01 into the third period when Zachary Mitchell went behind the net and handed it off to a charging Freshman, who then scored on a neat wraparound past a completely-fooled Hirbe.
"It's good to see the young guys step up in big division games and get some points," Stephens said. "That just means all the lines are kind of working and everybody's involved. It just makes a big difference."
The Tigers got goals from Farina, Lance French and co-captain Ryan Basgall to cap off their spurt of six goals in the game's final 20:35.
