January
13, 2007
WAYNE -- The 2006-07 ice hockey season has been a struggle for Don Bosco, a team that has a new coaching staff as well as a roster that has only five players with previous varsity experience entering the year.
On Friday night at the Ice Vault, three of those five were unavailable, having committed to a junior tournament in Michigan that is played before dozens of college and professional scouts.
The timing was not good, as Delbarton brought its 7-1-1 record and Gordon Conference leading team into the Vault. The Green Wave were too quick and too sound for the Ironmen, as they raced out to a 5-0 lead after two periods and coasted home to a 5-1 win.
The Wave’s experience level allowed them to make the kind of plays Ironmen fans were used to seeing from their team not too long ago. Delbarton took advantage of positioning to score a pair of first period goals on backside passes.
Their first tally came at 2:42, with Dan DeRenzi knocking it past Bosco goalie Brian Beneke (25 saves) on assists from Chip Peinado and Andy Bell. They made it 2-0 at 6:07, with Kenny Agostino and Thad Williams assisting on Matt Schillings’ goal.
What was likely the deciding score came just 37 seconds into the second period, as Tom Pesce found a streaking Agostino and he sent it past Beneke.
Schillings added his second of the game (from Charles Nerbak) at 10:19 and Zach Williams got Delbarton’s final goal at 13:48 on assists from Agostino and Charles Orzetti.
“Our inexperience showed tonight in the early part of the game,” DB associate head coach Greg Toskos admitted. “They battled their butts off, that’s all we can ask for. We’ll get some more wins. We’re fighting to make the Gordon Cup playoffs. They key is do these guys want to win enough to will themselves to win.”
The final period may be the indication he was looking for. The Ironmen took better care of the defensive zone and kept the area in front of Beneke clear. Meanwhile, they broke up the shutout.
The goal came from freshman Mark McPherson, playing in only his second varsity game. A 12-goal scorer on the junior varsity, he was called up to try and add some punch to a lagging offense. He got a pass from Sean Tomasini as he cleared the right circle and banged it past Greenn Wave goalie Michael Infante (11 saves) at 3:24.
“Our young kids played hard tonight, they battled the whole game,” Toskos noted. “That’s a good sign. We’re building practice by practice, game by game.”
In dropping to 2-5-1 on the season, Don Bosco is still in seventh place in the Gordon Conference, where only the top six teams make the Gordon Cup playoffs. Toskos was asked what his team needs to do to compete for a spot in the postseason.
“We play like we played in the third period today,” he answered. “We came out hard in the third period, and we need to build off of that. We have to continue to take this third period into practice and then carry over that momentum into the next game (at Pope John next Friday).”
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