The South Portland hockey team fell to Bonny Eagle, 8-4, on Wednesday, Jan. 24, at the Portland Ice Arena.
While the result was the same, South Portland coach Bart Keinath felt his team had improved since an early season meeting with the Scots.
“We didn’t give up, even when they got a few quick goals there,” Keinath said. “The kids didn’t get down on each other; they didn’t get down on (goalie) Robby (Morong).
South Portland trailed only 1-0 after the first period, but Bonny Eagle scored four goals in the first four minutes of the second to blow the game open.
The Red Riots got on the board with under two minutes remaining in the period when Nick Griffin beat both a defender and Bonny Eagle goalie Cody Bradway with a backhand. Nick Fornwalt assisted on the goal.
Still, South Portland trailed 6-1 after two periods.
“(The players) knew after the second period that we probably weren’t going to win the game,” Keinath said, “but they were still talking about how we could. Even if we couldn’t win they wanted to come out and win a period, skate hard, and score some goals and leave on a positive note.”
In the third period, the Red Riots achieved that goal. Griffin scored again, assisted by captain Bobby Basinet while Dustin Mathews and Jake Tack scored goals of their own.
Bonny Eagle added two goals in the period, but South Portland won the final frame, 3-2.
Morong made 28 saves in net for the Red Riots, who is playing goalie this year for the first time.
“He has come a long way since the beginning of the year,” Keinath said. “He is a senior; unfortunately he won’t be back next year. The beginning of the year he couldn’t stand on skates and now he is standing on his head to make saves.
“A lot of the goals scored on Robby are because he is not technically sound and his positioning isn’t there. One on one head up he can stop the puck, he just hasn’t played much. It’s not a matter of making the saves it’s a matter of being in the right place to make the save. He’ll make the save if he is in the right spot, most of the time.”
Since playing Bonny Eagle, South Portland fell to Gray-New Gloucester, 6-2, and Sanford on Monday night, 5-3. They are back in action today at home against Noble.
Scarborough 6 Cape 1
The Cape Elizabeth hockey team upset Scarborough in the semifinals of the first ever Fix Cup tournament early last week. But the Red Storm responded to that charity benefit loss with a 6-1 win during the two teams’ regular season game on Saturday.
The Capers played well in the first 15 minutes and they grabbed a 1-0 lead heading into the middle period. Colby Pearson scored a power play goal with less than three minutes to go in the opening period with an assist from Andrew Gibson.
The visitors held onto that advantage until the 4:50 mark of the second when Sean Sullivan scored for the Red Storm (assists to Travis Griffin and Nate Gadbois) and the game was tied at 1-1. Scarborough added two more scores before the period ended to take a 3-1 lead into the final period. Another goal by Sullivan (with Griffin and Gadbois assisting again) and a short-handed score from Steve Cook (from Brent Mayo and Nick Norton) had the Red Storm in control during the second intermission.
Scarborough’s defense then took over limiting the Capers to just four shot in the final 15 minutes of play and goalie Josh Larrabee turned aside all of those to frustrate the Cape offense. The Red Storm netminder finished the game with 15 saves.
The Red Storm added three more goals in that final frame for the winning margin of 6-1. Those scores came from Mike Dakers, Jason Quirk and another from Sullivan. Assists on those goals came from Jack Snyder (3), Mayo, Kyle Huber and Gadbois.
Cape goalie Lincoln Jordan stopped 21 of Scarborough’s 27 shots.
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