By By Dave Diamond
It is a new team, a new season and a fresh start for the Pride ice hockey team, but the result stayed the same.
The Pride held on for a 7-5 win over the Suffolk Community College Stars on Saturday, beginning its Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference (MCHC) schedule with a victory.
“It was a lot tighter than I would have liked it to be,” said head coach Brian Ferrara. “Obviously, it would have been a lot nicer to go out there and take it to them.”
Though its lead seemed shaky at times, captain Matt Orenstein locked up the game with two consecutive goals late in the second period. The win did not come as a surprise, as the Pride finished unbeaten in regulation time during the entire regular season last year. The surprise came from the team’s inability to maintain a big lead, and worse, committing foolish penalties.
The team allowed only six Suffolk power-plays, but took numerous penalties along with the opposition for roughing and unsportsmanlike conduct instead of keeping cool and gaining the man advantage. Ferrara said he thinks the overaggressive attitude was a result of high emotions in the first league game.
“I would hope so,” he said about whether bad penalties would die down as the year progresses. “I’ve been preaching discipline, but you can only preach so much before a guy listens to you.”
Orenstein also criticized the team for its lack of discipline.
“We’re notorious for it-we take bad penalties like it’s going out of style,” he said.
Early in the game bad penalties were the least of the team’s problems. The Pride found itself in a tight game early, and new excitement turned into nervous tension when Suffolk struck first.
Only 31 seconds after the opening face-off, the Pride fell in an early hole. However, it tied the score at one about eight minutes later on a shorthanded goal by junior Matt Saidman. The goal resulted from a terrible giveaway by the Suffolk point men on the power play, and junior Joe Balabous went in with Saidman on an odd-man rush.
After a Rob Gleckler power play goal gave the Pride the lead, graduate student Steven Daley made it 3-1 when he took advantage of another Suffolk turnover. In an almost comical way, Daley pick-pocketed a Stars defensemen left standing still in the neutral zone and scored on a breakaway.
The Pride made it 4-1 early in the second period, when Orenstein grabbed the puck off a face-off deep in the Suffolk zone and made a fancy no-look pass to Gleckler, who buried his second of the game. Just when it seemed the Pride was well on its way to an easy win, the Stars answered back with a power play goal only 1:58 later to make it 4-2, and the teams would trade goals in the next few minutes to make it 5-3, Pride at the midway point.
Then, inexplicably, the Pride defensive system broke down and allowed Suffolk to rush goaltender George Lorenz (26 saves) consistently. Suffolk’s John Markowsky managed to score at 14:06 of the second period to make it 5-4, but Orenstein’s pair of goals would ice the game. Suffolk scored the lone goal of the third period.
The first game was successful, but proved the Pride was not at the same level as its 13-3 non-league win last week would suggest.
“Five goals (allowed) is obviously unacceptable,” Ferrara said. “The forwards were even less impressive in the defensive zone than the defensemen, and I don’t blame anybody specifically. I think it’s just learning the team method.”
ICE CHIPS
Sophomore scoring threat Vin Kelly left the game midway through the second period with an apparent shoulder injury. Ferrara said Kelly was not in serious pain but wanted to be careful this early in the season to avoid a lingering problem. Veteran defenseman Tom Germano highlighted the list of scratches for the game, but will definitely be in the line-up within the next couple of contests. The coaching staff, well aware that Germano can be relied on at anytime, wanted to get the youngsters some action to start the season.