November 17, 2006

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (8 – 4) beat their arch rivals, the University of Georgia 5-3 Friday night before a near capacity crowd at the Kennesaw Ice Forum.

The win snapped a four game losing streak for the Yellow Jackets and gave them a much needed victory.

Tech and Georgia played a very close game for most of the first two periods.

Georgia opened the scoring very quickly within the first minute of the first puck drop. A defensive miscue gave Georgia an easy scoring opportunity. The 1-0 lead lasted to almost to the end of the period when Georgia Tech scored on a power play.

Brian O’Connor scored on a rebound in close. Drew Baker and B.J. Stapleton got the assist. That tied the score at 1-1 at the end of one.

Both teams played good defense and numerous penalty kills in the second period. Georgia finally broke through with 5 minutes left in the second on a sizzling shot from the blue line.

The lead didn’t last as Tech scored another power play goal just one minute later on a shot by defenseman David Means with assist to Baker.

The Yellow Jackets kept the pressure on scoring two more times in the last two minutes of the period taking a 4-2 lead after two. David Means scored his second power play goal on a in-close rebound with assist to Dan Sweeney and Tom Porter.

O’Connor scored his second goal near the net with just seconds remaining. Stapleton had his second assist.

Period three saw Tech play defense trying to protect a two goal lead.

Georgia was tenacious all through the period and Tech Goalie Nick Rice made some incredible saves to keep the Jackets lead secure.

But with just 4 minutes in the game Georgia scored their first power play goal to get within one.

The final minute of the game saw the Georgia goalie get pulled, a Tech penalty for a two man advantage, a Georgia penalty to bring the advantage down to one and finally an empty net goal by B.J. Stapleton within the last second to give the Jackets the 5-3 victory.

Georgia out shot Tech 40-36 in the contest, but a majority of the shots came in the third period where Georgia had 20 shots to Techs 7.