EAST ALTON -- The Alton Redbirds certainly made the most of the opportunity that the second period provided against the East-Alton Wood River Oilers in Tuesday night’s Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association contest at East Alton Ice Arena.
The Redbirds scored five goals in the second period en route to a 9-3 win. The nine goals marked a season-high for Alton, which led 2-1 after one period.
“We’re a young team and we struggle with discipline,” Oilers coach Phil Kaylor said. “And we struggle with giving the same effort every night. We get frustrated and start running around in our zone, we need to really concentrate on playing our positions, but it’s something I expect with a team of freshmen and sophomores.”
Alton’s Tanner St. Peters turned in a hat trick. He scored a goal off of a close range shot at the 4:55 mark in the second quarter to give the Redbirds a 5-1 lead.
St. Peters scored again with 23 seconds left to play to give the Redbirds a 7-1 lead. He scored his first goal with 51 seconds remaining in the first period.
“I tried to do everything I could do,” St. Peters said. “It was a pretty good game. We lost the last two. We just have to build it up from there.”
Jack Sumner scored Alton’s first two second-period goals with 10:42 and 9:06 left to play to make the score 4-1.
Connor Neely netted a goal with 53 seconds left in the second period to give the Redbirds a 6-1 advantage.
Bryce Simon added another Redbirds’ goal early in the third period to give Alton an 8-1 lead.
Carter Anderson’s goal with just seven seconds left to play gave Alton a 9-3 lead.
The Redbirds outshot the Oilers 15-7 after the first period and 35-16 after the second.
“I didn’t think we played to the best of our ability,” Redbirds coach Steven Campbell said. “I thought we played an OK game. I didn’t feel like we played our style of hockey, but we’ll take the win.”
The Oilers’ Kaleb Harrop scored all three of EA-WR’s goals to finish with his first hat trick of the season.
Harrop scored his first goal with 5:50 left to play in the first period to tie the contest at 1-1. He scored again at the 10:41 mark in the third period, as he broke away from Alton’s defense, drove the puck toward the goal and scored. Harrop scored his last goal at the 9:32 mark in the third quarter to cut the Redbirds’ lead to 8-3.
“It doesn’t matter how many goals I score,” Harrop said. “I want to win games and get better before the playoffs. It’s about the team and not me.”
The Oilers dropped to 1-4 with the loss, while Alton improved to 1-3-1.
