By Dylan Butler
There’s a fine line between aggression and overaggression, but the Holy Cross hockey team couldn’t find that line Friday at Abe Stark Rink on Coney Island.
An aggressive forecheck led to both Knights goals, but overaggression resulted in a bevy of costly penalties in a 2-2 tie with St. Joseph by the Sea.
“We just need a little more self control out there,” said senior forward Mark Goetzger. “We need to be a little more cautious of how we play aggressively.”
“When you play aggressive, penalties are going to happen,” added junior forward Joe Temperini. “Our main problem is once we get one penalty, we quickly get a second one. We just have to deal with it.”
After Billy Kline put St. Joseph by the Sea (2-5-4 CHSHL B) ahead, Goetzger tied the game at 1 for Holy Cross (3-3-3 CHSHL B) 20 seconds into the second period when he stole the puck from a St. Joe’s defender behind the net and beat Vikings’ goaltender Pete Adinolfi on a wraparound.
Three minutes later with the Knights killing a penalty, Temperini got to a loose puck behind the Vikings’ net and after faking a backhand, the Whitestone native scored on a wrist shot in front of the net to give Holy Cross a 2-1 lead.
“We just have to keep attacking the goal,” Temperini said. “Just dump the puck in and forecheck the heck out of it since some of our forwards were faster than their defense.”
But the Knights, playing without key forwards Chris Ryan (personal reasons) and Pat McHugh (shoulder injury), couldn’t hang on to the lead as Anthony Formisano beat Holy Cross goalie Matt Cammarata with a wrist shot between the circles with 10:43 left in the third period.
With each team taking a number of penalties — they combined for 60 penalty minutes — both teams had quality chances to take the lead late in the third. The best came with 3:21 left in the game when Pat McNamee had Adinolfi beat, but his wrist shot rang off the inside of the far post and caromed out.
“The effort tonight was much better than the last three games,” said Holy Cross coach Mike Mitchell. “We played a good second period and we had a lot of opportunities in the third period, but we just didn’t cash in on them.”
Holy Cross, which hasn’t won a CHSHL game since Dec. 12, takes on struggling Christ the King Thursday at Murray Rink in Yonkers at 5:15 p.m. and then plays St. Peter’s Sunday at 7:45 p.m. at Abe Stark Rink.
Fordham Prep 6, St. Francis Prep 4. Giancarlo Racanelli scored 2 goals, James Bertorelli had a goal and an assist, Paul Desmond had 1 and Mike Carpanini added 2 assists for St. Francis Prep (2-10-2 CHSHL A), which rallied from a 5-1 deficit Saturday night at the Ice Hutch in Mount Vernon. Fordham Prep (2-7-4 CHSHL A) was led by six different goal scorers.
The Terriers return to the ice Thursday when they face Iona Prep at Murray Rink at 8:45 p.m.
Reach Associate Sports Editor Dylan Butler by email at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 1-718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
