Most of the Squirrels haven’t played a game of ice hockey since winning the championship back in early April, so it wasn’t a surprise that they got off to a slow start. And now that the league is aggressively enforcing stick penalties, it wasn’t a surprise the Squirrels spent a good portion of the game in the box. Despite that, their winning ways continued Friday with a come-from-behind victory against summer C-3 champs Meltdown, 4-3, in the Patrick rink.

The rust showed in the first period, however, as the Squirrels went down 2-0, giving up a power play goal and one off of a turnover.

At 6:10 of the second period, Don Marks got the team’s first goal of the season to cut Meltdown’s lead to 2-1. But Meltdown struck again with 31 seconds remaining in the second period to go up 3-1.

That’s when the Squirrels’ rust wore off. Ten seconds into the third period, Adam Hughes flipped in a shot. Less than a minute later, Tony Richelsen scored. The score was suddenly 3-3.

While the Squirrels spent much of the first and second period killing penalties, Meltdown starting taking them in the third – five minors – and the Squirrels took advantage. Rob Myers capitalized on a two-man power play at 10:42 of the period to give the Squirrels the lead, and the score held the rest of the game.

Drew Thiemann made 26 saves for the Squirrels, who put up 35 shots, including 13 in the final period. The Squirrels played without Greg Wenograd, Sergio Balatan, Desi Richelsen, Jon Magi and Matt Borlik. The newest Squirrels, Brent Machado and Paul Kobernick, played their first game for the team.

The next game is Tuesday, Oct. 17, at 10:30 p.m. against Southwest Airlines in Resor.