Dragons Breathe Fire, Burn Red Storm; Shafer & Frazee score 7 as Granito is Stellar in Goal.
This afternoon the Drexel Dragons (3-4) dominated the St. John’s Red Storm (1-7) by a score of 13-4 at Vidas Field in Philadelphia.
Cole Shafer (Jr-A) scored four times and picked up 4 ground balls to help lead the team. Before the Red Storm could figure out what hit them, the Dragons built a 5-0 lead before St John’s would score their first goal at 4:39 of the second quarter. Holding the Red Storm scoreless for the first 19:39 of playing time is from the tight defense the Dragons put on the field along with the stellar goaltending of keeper Jimmy Joe Granito.
Robert Frazee (3G) all in first half paced the Dragons to a 7-2 halftime lead. Drexel put 17 shots on goal in the first half to St. Johns 7, and picked up 16 ground balls to St. John’s 10.
As the second half started St. John’s seemed to come out with a bit of a spark as they controlled the first couple minutes while scoring the first goal of the half at 1:28. But that spark didn’t last long as Will Manganiello (2G) and Cole Shafer (4G) scored forty one seconds apart to start a four goal run and give the Dragons a 9-3 lead and kill any fire St. John’s tried to start. Freshman Matthew Varian would score with :21 to go in the third to make the score 10-3. Cole Shafer would net his fourth of the game at :41 to complete the four goal run. This four goal run took 14:40 of game time, which gave the Drexel defense a total time of 34:19 of playing time without allowing a goal during the Dragons five goal run in quarter one and four goal run in quarter three and four.
St. John’s would score their fourth and final goal with 13:52 remaining in the game. Drexel would score twice more to put a lock on the game.
After dropping their first three games of the season the Dragons look to have the train on the right track. They have won 3 of the last 4. It started with a buzzer beater versus city rival St. Joseph’s University as Matthew Varian fired the game winner. Three days later they faced #12 Maryland Terrapins. The game was close in the first half, but the Terp’s pulled away taking a 12-8 victory. Last Saturday, Drexel’s third game in a week was on the road versus Bryant and was dominated by Drexel by the score of 14-5.
Goaltender Jimmy Joe Granito stopped 16-20 shots for the win. Cal Winkelman finished the final 6:31 without facing a shot on goal.
For St. John’s, they used three goaltenders. Joseph Danaher played the first half stopping 10-17 shots. Michael O’Keeffe played 25:06 stopping 4-9 shots, and Harry Burke played the final 4:54 allowing one goal on the only shot he faced.
Drexel is back in action Tuesday @ Binghamton for a 4pm start and return home next Saturday to face Mercer. CAA Conference games start April 2nd when the Dragons head to Maryland to face Towson University.
Leading Scorers:
St.Johns—James Bonanno (2G).
Drexel—Cole Shafer (4G) , Robert Frazee (3G), Will Manganiello (2G).
