By Dave Diamond
LONG BEACH, N.Y.-The Pride ice hockey club climbed one step closer to securing the Island Division title and the third seed in the Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference (MCHC) playoffs by defeating Briarcliffe College, 5-3, at Long Beach Arena Saturday night.
Steve Wagner scored the game-tying and game-winning goals for the Pride, helping the team forget the 10-4 drubbing it received at the hands of Suffolk Community College last Saturday. The win puts the Pride in the driver’s seat to a division championship heading into its final two games of the season.
“I definitely thought we out-played them, we dominated the game and the scoreboard isn’t a very good indication of that at all,” Pride head coach Brian Ferrara said. “This wasn’t a 5-3 game.”
It did indeed seem like a highly one-sided affair, particularly through the first 20 minutes, when the Pride cruised to a 2-0 first period lead. Rob Gleckler opened the scoring a mere 1:19 into the game, making an end-to-end rush and beating the Seahawks’ goaltender high on the glove side. Later in the period, the Pride took a two-man advantage for 1:42 and nearly capitalized. Trying to go short side, Ryan Drudy hit the post on the team’s best shot of the power play.
Fortunately for the Pride, the Seahawks goalie finally made a mistake. Still generating pressure despite failing on the long two-man power play, defenseman Elvis Svoboda threw a weak wrist shot at the goaltender from just inside the blue-line, which promptly slipped right through his legs for the goal at 14:26.
However, as the second period began with a much more physical and emotional balance to it, the puck began to be much kinder to Briarcliffe, putting the Pride in a position spectators could not believe. With the extra hitting came a power play opportunity for the Seahawks when Rich Hackford was sent to the box. Briarcliffe scored at 2:16 by banging home a loose puck during a mad scramble in front of the net, and Pride goaltender Chris Dasti had no clue where the puck was.
Just over three minutes later, more misfortune struck Dasti when a rolling puck somehow found its way past his pads to tie the game at two. The Pride, still getting most of the offensive chances, suddenly went cold. With 13:13 left to play in the middle frame, Wagner was robbed by a glove save when he found his way behind the Seahawks’ defense.
Then, just as suddenly as Briarcliffe got back into the game, they took the lead. At 11:16, a great individual effort by a Seahawks left winger gave his team a 3-2 lead.
“They were just bad bounces, you really have to block it out,” Dasti said of Briarcliffe’s three goals. “They were just breakdowns by us, and I was very confident that we were going to come back.”
The Pride did not panic, and instead regained composure to tie the game on a late power play opportunity in the period. Wagner scored his first goal of the game at 18:30 of the second during that advantage with a wrist shot from the point that nailed the inside back of the net.
At 9:09 of the third, Wagner followed up his own big rebound and managed to backhand a shot over the outstretched goaltender’s pads to give the Pride a 4-3 lead that it would not relinquish. Corey Green added a power play goal for the Pride with 4:58 remaining to make it 5-3.