Week of February 6 (Game 1) – Heading into this game, the consensus was that Drama Queens would continue their winning ways with their ability to only give up two goals or less per game on average, and Shockwave struggling all season to score more than two goals a game. The end result was Drama Queens extending their winning streak to three games, but just barely surviving a solid effort by a short-handed Shockwave team by the score of 3 – 1.
In the first period, Shockwave showed that they came to play as they outshot and out chanced Drama Queens. The hustle of Tony Medeiros and Dominic Defrancisco was clearly evident and this effort paid off with just over two minutes left in the period, as Tony took a pass from John Carey and beat the goalie clean.
In the second period, the momentum swung over to Drama Queens as they started controlling the play generating some quality scoring chances. Halfway through the period on an ensuing power play, Tony Bono scored, set up by the passing of Ray Dow and Manny Nunes. Drama Queens was starting to get shots from in close, while Shockwave was still generating their scoring chances from the perimeter.
As the third period played out in a tie game, Shockwave started playing more aggressively and was clearly generating more scoring chances that goalie Jake Brum was turning aside. The outcome of this game suddenly changed halfway through the period in a span of six seconds! At the five minute forty-one second mark, Mike Surette’s left point snap shot off a pass from Tim Hickey was initially saved by the goalie only to pop up above the goalie, drop down behind him, and Manny Nunes snuck in to redirect this into the open net. On the ensuing face off only six seconds later, big Mike loaded up another snap shot from inside his defensive zone and surprise the goalie glove side for the killer goal. With his fifth goal of the season, Mike now leads all defensemen in goals and moved up to second overall in the defensemen scoring race. Like the saying goes in those Jack Links commercials, “don’t mess with Sasquatch.”
Week of February 6 (Game 2) – This was a highly anticipated game that would not fail to live up to the hype. The game was played with an edge by both teams, neither one willing to give up any space on the rink, played with a playoff like feel with a sprinkling of physicality. What we witnessed was a good old fashioned defensive goalie game of “who would blink first.” Olive Pits did blink but just barely, as Jake-O-Lanterns scored the game’s only goal and held on for a thrilling 1 – 0 win. Every player on both teams came to play and hustled the entire game. With the win, Jake-O-Lanterns remains undefeated in the season head-to-head match-up, with a 2-0-1 record against their opponent.
In a scoreless first period, what stood out was the play of both goalies, stopping every shot thrown at them. Watching the game play out, you could sense that this would be a low scoring game. As good as goalie Jake Deehan was playing, goalie Dave Giusti outdid him one better by getting barraged with some point-blank shots, acrobatically turning these aside. Jake faced 12 shots, while Dave faced 16 in the period.
With Jake-O-Lanterns continuing to have two lines press the defense of Olive Pits (playing without their defensive leader and impact player Dave Costa) in the second period, the effort finally paid off as Gino Tammaro took a pass from Nick Doherty at the two-minute mark and finally put a goal past Dave. Usually, Gino is looking to set up his team mate; however, it was clear that Gino adopted a shoot first attitude coming into this game.
In the third period, as Jake-O-Lanterns keep running and throwing shots on net, they kept carrying the play. Olive Pits did manage to generate some prime scoring chances in a limited number of shots, but there was Jake to shut the door (marked by a breakaway save on Dave Parquette), just like his counterpart Dave was doing down the other end. At the conclusion of the game, Jake stopped all 27 shots he faced for his first shut out this season, while Dave literally stood on his head and faced 41 total shots, only letting one of those get past him. For this reporter, this game will standout this season for the display that both goalies showcased being locked in. The goalies stole the show in this game!
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