Pair of Goals From Sumi Leads Buzzers to Victory
By Adam Laskaris
The St. Michael’s Buzzers squeezed out a victory on Friday night.
In a contest that certainly had its ups and downs for both sides, the Buzzers beat the visiting Whitby Fury 4-3 at St. Michael’s College School Arena on October 21.
Down 1-0 after one period, Buzzers forward Tommy Sumi scored early into the second frame to tie th game. St. Michael’s then flew out of the gate in the third, scoring three quick goals in the first five minutes to take a 4-1 lead. However, Whitby fought back and popped in two scores in the last ten minutes of the period to make it interesting. The Buzzers’ third period goals were scored by Taylor Clements, Nathan Feric and Sumi, who totalled two on the night.
Playing from behind is something the Buzzers have done all season, and their upbeat attitude is one of the reasons why they often come back from down a goal or two.
“We keep the bench pretty positive,” Sumi said. "It’s easy to bounce back when you do that.”
Sumi now leads the leads the team in goals with 10 on the year, and ranks second in points with 22 behind Mark Cooper, who has 23.
Goaltender Adrian Ignagni was once again stellar for the Buzzers, making 39 saves in the process of earning his league leading 16th victory of the season as the Buzzers improved to 16-2-0-0.
Ignagni is ranked first in the league in saves, save percentage, and games played, while his 1.92 goals against average is fourth in the league.
Once again, Ignagni’s teammates hold high praise for his strong play.
“I can’t say enough about him,” said Sumi. “He’s the man. He’s playing really well for us right now, and I’m sure he’ll be able to keep this up for the rest of the season.”
Feric agrees.
“Without him, I don’t know if we’d be with the record we have,” he said.
The Buzzers were outshot 33-15 in the first two periods, but were fortunate enough to stay tied after 40 minutes of play. Whitby’s most dominant efforts came late in the first period, controlling the puck and getting a number of shots off before Jack Lewis scored the Fury’s first of the night.
“At the end of the first period, they were all over us,” said Feric.
Feric felt there was a simple key to getting back into and ultimately winning this game.
“We just needed to keep shooting,” he said. “Once we started getting more shots, we knew their goalie would give up some goals to us. We knew we were going to bury a couple.”
Coming off a tough 4-3 loss Wednesday night against the fifth-place North York Rangers, Feric felt the urge to win right from the beginning.
“After our warm up, we just went out there and played our game,” he said. “We knew we were going to get this one.”
St. Michael’s plays a home date this Sunday against the Mississauga Chargers, set for 2:30 p.m.
