With how the D230 Saints came out Friday night at Oakton Ice Arena in Park Ridge, you would have thought Maine Twp. starting and goaltender Joseph Murray were going to be in for a long night. After all, Murray did surrender seven goals on just 18 shots.

     Thankfully, the play of sr. fwd. Ryan Pape (Maine So.) (3G) and Shawn Chansed (2G) were enough to pace the ‘Men from M’ to a 10-7 win.

     “We just had a lot of bad defensive zone coverage tonight,” Pape said. “Especially in that third period. It was not good. We did not play a very good game tonight as crazy as that sounds.”

      The D230 Saints came out with abounding energy in the opening period as they scored twice to erase a 2-1 Maine Twp. lead and knot the contest at 2-2with 11:04 left in period one when fwd. Nick Ogean scored on the man-advantage.

      Maine would then strike back with two more tallies to close out the first frame at 4-2 with goals from fwd. John Donohue and Chansed.

      “We wanted to focus in on our puck possession and keeping the puck down low on them (Saints) and crash the net when we could,” Pape said. “I was getting a lot of second-chance opportunities down low close to their net.”

       Pape would score his second and third goals on the night in the middle period. His second goal of the game came at the 13:08mark off a feed from teammate Gavin Birch making it 5-2. It became 6-2 in favor of Maine Twp. when Pape finished off his hat trick when he took a pass from Nick Channon and scored a power play goal making it 7-2 with 8:34 remaining.

      “We have done pretty good thus far this season,” Pape said. “We started out a little slow at 1-2. But then we got a win over Buffalo Grove/Hersey/Wheeling recently and ever since we have been doing pretty well.”

    Both Pape and defenseman Otto Caberra however, echoed the same sentiment however afterwards.

      “We just had really poor defensive coverage tonight,” Caberra said. “We played sloppy tonight. I don’t know why. We have to focus better when we get to the rink. We just have to have the right mind set and be more locked-in as to what we need to do to be successful”

      Once the score got to 9-3 in the final period in favor of the home side, the running clock would kick in. This seem to energize the visitors to score a total of four goals over the final eleven minutes of play as they got to within two goals at 9-7 with 1:15 left in regulation.

The Saints would get goals from fwds. Max Egan, Lukas Majercek, Cian Thiesse and Jason Rediger.

      “When I liked about our play tonight is that we never gave up,” Saints Asst. coach Curtis Campbell, who was filling in for head coach Cal Burkhart who did not make the game due to personal reasons, said. “We continued to fight. We tried to come back but the clock was not in our favor.”

      Maine would get their final goal when James Nelson scored an empty net goal with :13 seconds left to play making it 10-7. 

      Saints starting goaling Filip Topor would finish the game with 24 saves.