By By Dave Diamond

It is one of the more overused sports clichés in history, but for those who were at Long Beach Arena Saturday night for the Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference (MCHC) rematch of last year’s finals, there was no other way to describe the game. It was like déjà vu all over again.

The SUNY Albany Great Danes bested the Pride and once again did so in thrilling fashion. Albany skated to a 3-2 overtime shootout victory, remarkably similar to last year’s 5-4 win on the Pride’s home ice, which also ended in a shootout.

As strange as it sounds, it could certainly be argued that last season’s regular season game was much more memorable than Albany’s 5-3 victory in the MCHC Finals. However, the action this weekend, in terms of the Pride’s growing list of memorable moments, was an instant classic.

Without a doubt, the third period was the story as the teams skated in front of a raucous crowd, which was divided because of Albany fans that made the trip down to Long Beach. With the game tied at 1 for the first 15 minutes of the final period, the underdog Pride broke through. At 16:27, senior Steve Wagner skated in front of the net during a scramble, and found a rebound bounce right to his stick. The Pride bench exploded with joy as Wagner beat Great Dane goaltender Frank Guiffre (32 saves), giving the Pride a 2-1 lead with under four minutes remaining.

Only one minute later, Pride sophomore Vin Kelly skated in on a breakaway looking to ice the game with an insurance goal, but was stopped by Guiffre. In the coming seconds, the Pride was pinned in its own end, and the ensuing play was almost expected.

At 18:19 Albany senior Adam Finkin skated in on the right circle and fired a wrist shot past Pride goaltender George Lorenz (33 saves), who was screened with a number of jockeying bodies in front of him.

With the score tied at 2 in the final minute, Kelly once again skated in alone on Guiffre, but was too fancy and was unable to get a clean shot against the sprawling goaltender.

The first shooter for Albany in the shootout was sophomore Alex Leipsic, and he beat Lorenz stick side after a last-second deke move put the goaltender out of position. The Pride had no luck as Guiffre stuffed Kelly, Wagner, Matt Orenstein and Brian Mazliach, last year’s MCHC Tournament MVP. Albany’s Will O’Hara finished the Pride, scoring in almost the exact way Leipsic had four shooters earlier.

Lorenz, by far the Pride’s best player all night, was so upset by the final goal that he immediately jumped up and skated frantically toward the Pride locker room before teammates grabbed him for the team hand-shakes.

“I wasn’t surprised that we ended up in a shootout,” Pride head coach Brian Ferrara said. “It could go either way in the shootout, so you can’t be mad at that.”

While Guiffre stole the show in the shootout, not enough can be said for Lorenz, who withstood thirteen shots on goal to keep the first period scoreless when the Pride was thoroughly outplayed.

While the Pride shook off last year’s loss to finish the season unbeaten, it will be Ferrara and captain Orenstein’s job to make sure the loss in this highly anticipated match-up does not send the Pride spiraling in the standings. The coach made no excuses, but finds solace in a number of ways despite the loss.

“We took the best team in this league to the end,” he said. “We had them down, but good teams come back, and they battled back. This meant more than the standings; we did a lot of proving tonight. We proved to them that we’re for real and to ourselves after a tough loss last week.”

Last week also brought a noticeable disadvantage for the Pride. Its win over New Paltz proved costly, as leading scorer Rob Gleckler was suspended for the Albany game due to a game misconduct for butting a New Paltz player with the end of his stick.

After a scoreless first period, O’Hara put Albany on the board first, converting a pass on a two-on-one break at 4:50 of the second period. At 8:13, Mazliach tied the game when Guiffre went down to stop a Kelly shot. Both teams did not shy away from hard body checks throughout.

ICE CHIPS

The Long Beach Police arrived midway through the third period to calm a dispute between Pride and Albany fans threatened to become physical. The police departed when the game ended, which turned out to be a poor decision. Members of the Pride team and Albany fans became involved in a physical confrontation outside Long Beach Arena for several minutes until the police arrived again. Details about the altercation could not be discussed by Ferrara because he still is hearing scattered reports.