Ice Cats 8
Seastangs 3
The Fryeburg Academy/Lake Region hockey team got eight goals from eight different players to cruise to an 8-3 win over Massabesic/OOB Saturday night at Biddeford Ice Arena. The Ice Cats recorded two power play goals and a short-handed goal on their way to the win.
At 8:04 of the first period, Cats right winger Ryan Ahern was sent to the penalty box for tripping to give the Seastangs their first power play chance of the night. Midway through the power play, Richard Miller stole the puck and skated toward Seastangs goalie Jeremy Corthell. Miller fired a wrister from the slot to open the scoring with a short-handed goal.
The Ice Cats continued to pressure the Seastang defense and managed to score twice more in the final two minutes of the first period. With 1:56 to go, Scott Layne doubled the lead when his shot ricocheted off Corthell’s pads and flew up and into the net. Just six seconds later, Dan Casey fed the puck off the faceoff to Ted Skarbinski who beat Corthell and the Ice Cats took a 3-0 lead into the first intermission.
“They are a pretty good team,” said Seastangs coach Dave Pasquarello of the Ice Cats. “I knew their record, I hadn’t seen them play, but I heard good things about them. I thought we hung with them pretty well. We were a little sluggish defensively and we need to be more aggressive to the puck and more alert to where the open man is and getting the puck out of our zone.”
In the second period, the Ice Cats made it a 4-0 lead just over a minute into the period. Ahern fired a one-timer from the slot off a pass from Nick Marshall. It was the first goal let up by new Seastangs goalie Kyle McClay.
Less than a minute later, the Seastangs got on the board. Devin Mercier got the puck behind the net from Steve Drown. Mercier banked a shot off the goaltender’s skate and into the net.
“It’s easy to throw in the towel,” Pasquarello said. “The easy way out is to give up when you’re down by four or five goals. But these kids didn’t quit.”
Midway through the second, Drown was sent to the penalty box for tripping and the Ice Cats had their first power play of the night. Just 22 seconds after the penalty, Marshall grabbed the puck in the neutral zone. He skated into the attacking end and squeezed between two defenders to score the fifth Ice Cat goal of the game.
Later in the period, the Seastangs recorded a power play goal of their own. With Dalton Hinckley serving time in the sin bin, Kevin Lambertson made it a 5-2 score when he stuffed a rebound into the cage for the Seastangs.
Any momentum that the Seastangs might have been grabbing was quickly extinguished by two more Ice Cat goals in the final three minutes of the period. Casey scored with 3:01 to go in the period to make it a 6-2 game. Just under a minute later, it was Matt Cheney who recorded another power play goal to make it a 7-2 game.
The third period was a different story. The Seastangs returned to the ice on a mission. Alex Madruga was now in goal. Midway through the period, it appeared the 7-2 score would hold. But Drown fired a slapper through the five hole for the third Seastangs goal. Late in the period, Hinckley scored the final goal of the night for the Ice Cats.
“I felt like we won the third period even though it was 1-1,” Pasquarello said. “I think we out played them. We played all three goalies tonight. Jeremy did well, Kyle McClay did well and Alex did great. He shut out Sanford for us in the holiday tournament.”
For the Ice Cats, this was their fifth win in six tries this season. The Seastangs are still looking for their first win of the year. But Pasquarello believes the strides they are making now, will lead to wins in the future.
“We only had two penalties and that’s what we want,” he said. “The wins will come and they are starting to buy into that. All we talk about is one shift at a time, keep your head up if you make a mistake and think about the next shift. Learn from the mistakes then on the next shift here we go. That’s all we can do.”
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