February 5, 2012

An interesting week for Jumbo hockey - started off with a non league tilt against Suffolk a team that has struggled this year - we played a very poor first period and fell behind at 8:19 - this did not seem to wake us up at all so the period ended 0-1 ---- unfortunately the second period was no better and we were lucky to only trail by one goal going into the third period ------ it took us until 5:35 to score a goal but by 17:45 we scored 5 more to make it a 6-1 final - Evin Koleini was in goal and played well while the rest of the team played well for 20 minutes, enough to win this game but not well enough to win NESCAC games ---- we shall see --- goals were by Power, Carson, Plimmer, Voigt (2) and Schartz while assists went to Armstrong, Story, Milley, Gallegos (2), Edwards, Power, Plimmer and Pantazopoulos - Conn College this weekend for home and away back to back games

Conn College in town Friday night for the first of two important games in the standings - a split of the games keeps us in the hunt for a top 5 finish, two wins will lock up a playoff berth while two losses will throw us into the hunt for spots 6 through 9 ---- Friday night we start off as we finished against Suffolk ( I started a new email because I could not get the" red" off the previous email) anyway we rattle off 4 goals in the first period, three by Kyle Gallegos, one being a great unassisted goal at the 20:00 minute mark - the other goal went to Andy White while assists went to Plimmer (2), Power (2) and Amico ---- in the second CC scored on the PP at 7:16 but we came right back on a PP of our own, Edwards from Plimmer and Gallegos ------ the third period was bizarre - early on the CC coach yanked his goalie, they could not afford a loss here, but we quickly scored two easy goals at 3:10 and 4:56, Schartz from Edwards and Amico unassisted to make it 7-1 ----- the goalie foolishness stopped and we played decent hockey the rest of the way ----- it got a bit chippy toward the end, one attempt to injure against CC and a couple of others both ways - a big win, now off to CC for the for the second half of the weekend games

This one also had its bizarre twist - a CC player fired a shot into our pre game warm up skate and earned himself a penalty before the game started - this was a big help to the CC confidence so we decided to score a couple of goals early, 4:02 and 7:05, both goals by my friend and yours Kyle Gallegos (Voigt, Power and Plimmer assisting) - CC came back at 11:22 to make it 2-1, now we have a hockey game - no one score for 20 odd minutes until CC ties it up midway through the period - at 16:25, two seniors matt Amico and Evan Story combine to put us ahead 3-2 and this holds up until Plimmer gets an unassisted open net goal at 19:28 to seal the win - we of had to spice it up again with a penalty with less than 2 minutes left so the last goal was in a 4 on 6 situation - big win

We have now locked in a playoff spot with four games left, not easy, at #1Amherst , at Hamilton then home against #2 Bowdoin and Colby standings are Amherst 24 pts, Bowdoin 19, Tufts 17, Williams 16, Middlebury 15 then Trinity 12, Wesleyan 11, CC 8, Hamilton 8 and Colby 4 ----- Wil, Mid, Tri and Wes have games in hand today so Williams and Middlebury could pick up two each --- in any case we are battling for a seed anywhere from two to seven, eight are selected -------------------- by the way Kyle Gallegos was selected NESCAC "player of the week" a week ago, a well deserved award

This coming week at Amherst on Saturday night at either 7 or 7:30 then off to Hamilton at 3:00 on Sunday (great scheduling by the conference) --- big games followed by two biggies on the 17th and 18th against Bowdoin and Colby, 7:00 and 4:15

Ben

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