Hawks rally late, fall to Sentinels in OT

By Matt Metcalf
Posted 1/31/17

It took Hendricken 30 minutes, but it finally got its game going in the third period against Smithfield on Friday night. The Hawks battled back from a pair of two-goal deficits, scoring three goals in the third period,

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Hawks rally late, fall to Sentinels in OT

Posted

It took Hendricken 30 minutes, but it finally got its game going in the third period against Smithfield on Friday night.

The Hawks battled back from a pair of two-goal deficits, scoring three goals in the third period, including the game-tying goal by Dan Cavanagh with 34.3 seconds left in regulation to force overtime.

However, the Sentinels, who led 2-0 entering the third period, would prevail in the extra frame. At 2:40, senior captain Jim Varin controlled the puck below the goal line and fired a pass out to freshman Dan Smith in the slot, who one-timed the puck past Patrick Gribbin to give visiting Smithfield a 4-3 victory.

Despite the slow start, Hawks’ head coach Jim Creamer was pleased with his team’s ability to battle back in the final 15 minutes and grab a point.

“We were lucky to get a point,” Creamer said. “The way we played in the first two periods was atrocious. I don’t even have an explanation for it. We’ve had some poor periods, but that was not pretty to watch. To our credit, we came back and I’m really proud of the effort in the third period.”

Smithfield got on the board at 7:04 of the first period on a set play from its defensive zone. David Goolgasian won a faceoff to the right of goaltender Hogan Nelson before immediately sprinting to the opposite side of the ice through the neutral zone. Junior defenseman Logan Clavet possessed the puck off the draw and wrapped the puck around the boards to Goolgasian, who went in and scored on a breakaway to make it 1-0.

The Sentinels kept their momentum going in the second period thanks in large part to a fortunate bounce.

With more than six minutes gone, a shot from the point by Ryan Falls was blocked, but the puck deflected to the stick of Luca Ragosta, who wristed a shot into the twine to up the lead to 2-0.

Hendricken, on the other hand, couldn’t get a bounce to go its way in the first two periods.

The Hawks had a plethora of chances, particularly in the second period, but they just couldn’t solve Nelson.

Peter Krekorian won a puck battle along the boards on the penalty kill in the first minute of the period, before sending a pass in front to Michael Shaw, but his redirection was smothered by Nelson.

Michael DiMascolo also had a couple of quality chances, getting denied on the first and ringing the post to the left of Nelson on the second.

With Hendricken struggling to get on the board, Creamer shuffled his lines and went with a short bench in the third.

That move would produce frequent chances and more puck possession time for Hendricken.

Just 12 seconds into the third, a strong entry into the attacking zone helped to draw a penalty against Falls, giving the Hawks their first man advantage of the night.

It took them less than a minute to score on the power play, as DiMascolo took a feed from Pat Creamer at the top of the right circle, before wristing a shot top shelf to trim the deficit to 2-1.

“We haven’t had a power play since, we had one power play last weekend against La Salle, and we’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into it,” Jim Creamer said. “We were able to get one there, and that sort of changed things.”

After some back-and-forth play for the next seven minutes, Smithfield was able to answer. Tyler Varin sent what looked to be a well-wide point shot toward the goal, but Goolgasian was able to impressively redirect the shot in the slot to make it a two-goal game again, 3-1.

Just a tick under two minutes later, Hendricken responded when Pat Creamer cleaned up a rebound in front off a DiMascolo shot to cut the Smithfield lead to 3-2.

That’s where the score remained until the last minute. Hendricken pulled Gribbin and sent out Cavanagh as the extra attacker. He would possess the puck, skate behind the goal and send a pass out in front that banked in off a Smithfield defenseman to tie the score at 3 with 34.3 seconds left.

After letting the lead slip away, Smithfield would redeem itself in overtime, though. Brown’s goal with 2:10 left would clinch the Sentinels’ (10-3) best win of the season thus far.

Hendricken (9-0-1-2) bounced back in a big way with an 11-0 victory over Cumberland on Saturday evening, as DiMascolo led the way with three goals and four assists.

The Hawks, who hold a one-point lead and a game-in-hand over Smithfield in the standings, will be back in action on Saturday night at Thayer at 7:30 p.m. against one-win Cranston Co-op.

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