Random thoughts and observations from last night’s game…
As expected, Brockport had their hands full with Morrisville last night, just like most teams in the SUNYAC have. They brought their “A” game and were in it until Brockport went up 3-1 with seven minutes remaining. Prior to that, it was basically a 1-1 game until 8 minutes into the third period.
The fans couldn’t ask for a more dramatic game. It had waves of high tempo…just when you thought the game was slowing up a bit, both team turned it up a notch and went out for blood. It was such an exciting game that the Zamboni malfunction and subsequent 10-minute delay in the second intermission went unnoticed.
You knew it was going to be a physical game when, in the first 10 seconds of the game, Dave McNab took a backhander at the Morrisville net and a Mustang player grabbed Dave’s head from behind and slammed it into the back of the net, almost putting Dave’s forehead in the crossbar. That was a cheap shot that really had the potential to mess someone up…a cheap shot that set the tempo for the game.
The hit of the game occurred moments later in the first when Tom Galiani checked Morrisville’s #11 (Garrett Leigh) into the old penalty box, laying the kid out. Poor Leigh must have had a bull’s eye on him because Justin Noble put him on the ice with an open-ice hit in the second.
After going up 1-0 in the first, Morrisville had a very good chance of making it 2-0 just a few minutes later. MS’s #28 (Bobby Cass) broke loose on a breakaway and saw his chance ruined by a great defensive play. Andrew Simmons caught up with him and his angle of pursuit allowed him to get in front of Cass…Simmons then punched Cass in the chest just as he fired away, sending the puck into no man’s land.
The already-aggressive Golden Eagles seemed to pick up even more emotion during the first intermission and came in guns-a-blazing as the second period started. Dave McNab tied the game with a goal that had some nice touch on it, going over the goaltender’s shoulder. They controlled the tempo in the second (15 shots to 5) but Morrisville’s goaltender was up to the task.
The third period was a game within the game. Morrisville found their way and finally poured it on, putting 16 shots on goal to Brockport’s 17. They had a hard time beating Todd, and their only goal of the third occurred when they had an extra attacker after emptying their net in the final minute. He made three really great saves in the third that most goalies could not make…one was a sprawling contortion following a deflection off his mask and another was a Hasek-like roll with three attackers on top of him. The other brilliant save was about as close to a goal as you can get. The shot came in from the side, went behind his legs and nearly broke the plane, but, while upright, he reached behind himself and deflected it with his glove hand. Not an easy save to make.
It was a shot-heavy period but a violent period, too, both team checking like there was no tomorrow. Dave McNab had the best of the bunch, flattening MS’s #16 (Sgarbossa) who hobbled off the ice. I thought for sure the kid was not coming back to the game they way he was skating/hopping back to the bench. But he did, fortunately, come back.
After winning the Western New England game for Brockport, Ryan Silveira was Mr. Clutch again. In the third he put Brockport up 2-1. He’s on a nice tear…three goals in three game.
Gregg Amato added a nice power play goal with 7 minutes left, getting the goal just as the Morrisville penalty hit 00:00. That goal was much-needed as Morrisville got their second with 9 seconds left in the game.
After watching this game and reading about how they’ve scared and beat other teams, it’s obvious that the competitive Mustangs bring yet another interesting dimension to the already-competitive SUNYAC. Now, not a single team in the conference can be looked at as a pushover. Find me a stronger conference in DIII. You can’t.
Brockport is now 10-5-3. A double-digit win season…awesome!
The attendance at last night’s game was listed at 500. I don’t know. It really filled up in the second period. I would have pegged it closer to 750.
The athletic department's report....
Freshman Gregg Amato (Ocean Gate, NJ) scored with seven miutes to play in the third period to propel The College at Brockport Hockey team to a 3-2 victory over SUNY Morrisville in a State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) game Saturday evening at Tuttle North Ice Arena in Brockport.
The victory extends the school-record unbeaten streak to nine games as the Golden Eagles (10-5-3 Overall, 4-3-2 SUNYAC) are 7-0-2 during the streak.
After Morrisville scored in the first period to take an early 1-0 lead, Brockport answered with the tying goal early in the second period as senior Dave McNab (Hamilton, ONT) took a centering pass and slipped a quick shot past the Morrisville (5-13-1, 1-8-1) goalie with just 50 seconds elapsed in the period.
In the third period, Ryan Silveira (Brampton, ONT) skated past three defenders and scored the go-ahead goal with 11 minutes to play in the period. Four minutes later, Amato scored what seemed to be an insurance goal on a slap shot from the point on a power play but with nine seconds left in the game, Morrisville scored with the extra attacker on the ice to trim the lead to 3-2.
Senior Tim Crowley (Brasher Falls, NY) had two assists in the game and goalie Todd Sheridan (Edison, NJ) made 27 saves for his seventh win of the season.
