1/8/05
Thayer Roars Back with Five Straight Third Period Goals
Canton, Mass. -- Trailing 3-1 with just under 13 minutes left in the third period, #6 Thayer exploded for five straight goals on the way to a 6-3 win over #4 Nobles Saturday.
Down the stretch, Thayer's top line of RW Pierce Norton (4g,1a), LW Greg Collins (1g,4a) and C Brian Gibbons (1g) was simply unstoppable. Norton in particular played like a man among boys in the offensive zone, using his size, strength and mean streak to dominate along the wall and around the net.
Nobles started strong, opening the scoring at 2:41 of the first on a breakaway goal by Ryan Maguire, who tucked a backhander behind Thayer's Matt Frechette after taking a nice home-run pass from D Derek Pallis.
Thayer replied at 3:57 on a power play when Norton muscled out from the backboards and tucked a backhander up under the bar. Collins and Ryan Driscoll assisted.
Thayer had the edge in play in the first, forechecking aggressively and pinching its D at every opportunity.
Much of the second period was played in the neutral zone before Nobles took the lead on a late goal by its '89 line of Josh Franklin, Jimmy Hayes and Andrew Glass. Franklin corraled a loose puck in the left corner and fed Hayes, who snapped a 20-footer over John Muse's glove from between the faceoff dots at 15:03.
Nobles went up by two 5:16 into the third. With the teams playing 4-on-4, Matt Rhone cleanly won a draw back to Josh Burrows, then tipped Burrows' shot past Muse.
At that point, Nobles looked to be in good shape. Inexplicably, though, they fell apart and the strength and speed of Norton, Collins and Gibbons took over.
The comeback started on a Norton top-shelf wrister from close range at 8:15. Collins assisted.
Norton tied it on a power play at 10:34, tipping in a shot from the top of the crease. Anthony Aiello and Collins assisted.
At 12:27, Gibbons scored the day's prettiestgoal. Sent in alone by Norton, Gibbons faked Muse out into the Sportsplex parking lot before sliding home the winner.
Norton notched his fourth from Collins at 14:26 and Collins bagged an empty netter with 21 seconds left.
Nobles will try to bounce back when it hosts Lawrence on Wednesday, while Thayer heads over to Belmont Hill.
