Explosive Second Period Lifts OA Hockey to Victory Over Foxborough

The hockey team may have come out sluggish at the start of Wednesday night's game against Foxborough. But, after going into the locker room in a scoreless tie, OA coach Jim Sullivan made sure the second period didn't start the same way.

"'[I said] you’ve got to wake up," Sullivan said. "You can’t be letting these guys hang around. They're not a bad team. They could have come back and hurt us - they always do. I’m surprised they didn’t come back."

The Tigers responded in the second period, and left the Asaif Arena with a 4-0 victory to improve to 8-3-3.

Just 18 seconds into the period, Dylan Burns scored with an assist from Derek Johnson and Kyle Johnson. One minute later, Drew Koeppel put the Tigers ahead, 2-0, with an assist by Jimmy Waitz and David Nolan. Four minutes after that, 5:22 into the second, Tyler Provost scored on an unassisted goal.

Sean Kyne cemented the game in the third period with an assist from Thomas McNeeley and Dylan Burns.

Aside from a difficult second period, Foxborough coach Jim Genovese said there were plenty of positives to take away.

"We know what OA brings," he said. "We’ve played them already and any game on the road is going to be tough. But, we battled the whole third and first period for the most part."

With the loss, Foxborough drops to 3-8-3 on the season.

"We worked hard in the third there and battled and didn’t give up, so that’s always good," Genovese said. "We’ll keep going to the next game, so we’ll build off of that."

OA's defense remained strong throughout the game. Goalie Jimmy Tierney added his third shut-out of the season. It wasn't without hard work. In the first period, Foxborough's Aiden Campbell found himself on a break-away.

"Jimmy made that nice save on the break-away with Campbell," Sullivan said. "It was a good shot and he got a piece of it to keep it away, which was nice to keep the shut-out."

The Tigers will travel to Stoughton on Saturday to take on the Black Knights. Sullivan, taking a page from one of New England's most famous coaches, is looking to take things one game at a time.

"We’re looking forward to moving on," he said. One game at a time - like belichick”