Mouth of the South: Week 7; Games 15,16,17

Grade: A
Players of the Week: Goaltenders (Darling & Dekker)

(FROZEN CHOMP) Thanks to the tremendous effort by netminders Scott Darling and Adam Dekker, the IceGators have lifted themselves to the middle of the league standings in week 7.

With a third of the season gone in a blink of an eye, the IceGators have taken their fans on a rollercoaster ride because of their inconsistent play. Going into the week, big question marks surrounded the IceGators. We were down a few injured players, had new additions plugged into the lineup, and faced two of the top three teams in the league. Week 7 was quite a test for us but we played hard and prevailed.

The Gators suffered a tough blow by losing the first game of the week to Pensacola, but did not have anything to feel bad about. They played with tremendous effort and outshot the Ice Flyers but were defeated on the scoreboard, thanks to a brilliant effort by Ice Flyers' goalie Thomas Lee. It would have been easy to shut down mentally due to the tough loss, but the Gators rebounded even stronger against the then top ranked Huntsville Havoc.

In many instances in Friday's game, it looked like the IceGators were going to have another heartbreaking loss. Even though the Gators had many scoring opporunities, the oposing goalie kept them from winning in regulation. It was IceGators' goalie, Scott Darling, however, that would steal the show. Late in overtime, the Havoc were awarded a penalty shot and Darling came up huge with a save to force a shootout. In the shootout, Fultz and McLaughlin scored for the Gators. Tension was at an all-time high with one shooter to go for the Havoc. The shooter needed to score to send the game into another set of shots. With much goalie controversy talk before the week started, Darling once again proved why he is the starting goalie with another huge save.

The IceGators entered Saturday night's game with all the momentum, and it showed from start to finish. They played a complete game which ended 6-3. The crowd was awarded with great hockey and even a fight between Louisiana's Sicard and the Havoc goalie. View Goalie Fight

We look forward to defeating Pensacola on Thursday night. The games on Friday and Saturday will both be played at the Cajundome. The games this weekend mark the end of the Fall semester, meaning our writers will have time to write our usual full-length articles. As college students this is a busy time for us. We apologize for our short articles over the last two weeks.