FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS • From start to finish, Triad dominated Monday's hockey game against Roxana at the U.S. Ice Sports Complex.
But coach Roger Lewis felt the Knights' performance in the 9-0 victory still left something to be desired.
"I was actually kind of disappointed with how we played because sometimes in games like this, you lose your focus," said Lewis, whose squad remains in second place in the Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association Class 1A Western Division at 8-2-1. "Playing a young team like that, it's easy to pick up some bad habits.
"Our next game is against Columbia (Dec. 27 in Fairview Heights) and they're a very good team. We're going to have to be a lot sharper than we were tonight if we want to win that game."
Triad scored its first goal at the 4:09 mark in the first period as Seth Grooms beat Roxana goalie Caden Anderson from just inside the right faceoff circle. At 11:44, just four seconds after the Knights went on the power play, Tim Faulker scored off a pass from Kyle Black to boost Triad's lead to 2-0.
The Knights broke the game open with three goals in the second period. Joe Gruber got things started at 3:41, popping in a rebound of a shot from Nick Faulkner. Less than a minute later, Tim Faulkner stole the puck near the red line, skated in and bounced a shot off Anderson's pads into the right side of the net.
Groom's second goal of the game, after a scramble in front of the net, made the score 5-0 with 1:15 to play in the period.
In the third period, goals by Tim Faulkner, Nick Faulkner and Tyler Lewis put Triad ahead 8-0. Tim Faulkner's fourth goal of the game and his eighth of the season closed out the scoring for the Knights.
"Like everybody else tonight, Nick and Tim (who has 18 goals) got a little sloppy at times, but game in and game out, they play hard regardless of what the score is," Roger Lewis said.
Tim Faulkner, like his coach, felt the Knights didn't play their best team hockey despite the lopsided score.
"Sometimes you try to be a superstar and do everything by yourself," Faulkner said. "Our passing wasn't very good tonight. Against Columbia, we need to show a little more intensity."
Triad had 50 shots on goal. Knights goalie Nick McGrath had to make only four saves in picking up his fourth shutout of the season to drop Roxana to 1-8-2.
COLLINSVILLE 10, JERSEYVILLE 1 • In Monday's second game at U.S. Ice, the Kahoks faced similar issues in its rout of the Panthers.
Collinsville, which leads the Western Division, improved to 11-1.
"You're kind of worried about the intensity level compared to playing teams like Triad, but you just try to improve from game to game," Kahoks assistant coach Chris Moore said. "We did some things well tonight."
Dusty Watt led the way for the Kahoks with three goals, boosting his season total to 46.
"Three goals is just an average game for him," Moore said. "He's not a big kid, but he has a lot of skill. He's gotten better every year and this year he's been just about impossible to stop."
The Kahoks got one goal apiece from Adam Garcia, Dominic Zavaglia, Jason Sperry, Keith Henderson, Quentin Reiser, Jon Bednara and Austin McEwen.
"You have to treat a game like this almost like a practice game and work on different things to get better," Watt said. "We have a lot of the same guys from last year, but I think this is a stronger team. A year of experience makes a difference."
Tyler Gilleland scored the lone goal for Jerseyville (0-9-1) with 2:39 remaining, spoling a potential shutout for Collinsville goalie Kyle Bray. The Kahoks outshot the Panthers 33-11.
