By Dylan Butler
Oh, but not just any hockey game. This was the third and final regular season meeting between rivals Holy Cross and St. Francis Prep. The Battle of the Boulevard was taking place in Great Neck's Parkwood Rink.A week after playing to a 2-2 tie, Holy Cross edged St. Francis Prep 2-1 in front of a raucous crowd that included former players from both teams in attendance, athletes from other sports, as well as players from other teams in the league.The two schools may be separated by 2.3 miles of Francis Lewis Boulevard, but there is a gap of 16 points between the two teams in the CHSHL 'B' division standings. Holy Cross, which routed St. Francis Prep 5-0 in the first meeting Dec. 16, is comfortably in first place while the Terriers, which snapped a seven-game losing streak with a 2-2 tie against the Knights a week earlier, is in last place. “After the first game we probably took them for granted, the second time we played them it kind of slapped us in the face, but we came in today, everyone was pumped up, all day in school everyone was taking about this game,” said Holy Cross goaltender Matt Cammarata. “We had a lot of support from the school today, we had the principal down, a lot of kids. This was big in our school today.”Cammarata was equally big in the net for Holy Cross (10-1-1), making several key saves, including two spectacular stops in the closing seconds of the second period when he stoned Peter Loeb twice from point blank range. “That was hectic,” Cammarata said. “All of a sudden I see the puck going one way and I'm doing splits across the crease, just trying to stop the puck from going in. I was rolling, flopping all over.”Chris Anastasio put the Knights in front with 7:15 left in the first period when he split the Terriers defense and beat Prep goalie Greg Siroky with a low shot. But St. Francis Prep (2-8-2) responded three minutes later on the power play when Keith Lippert punched in a rebound. Michael Guerra and Sal Pinto assisted on the goal.”We knew from the beginning we had to come out hard and play hard throughout the whole game because it was going to be a close game,” Anastasio said.Will Gill scored what proved to be the game-winning goal for Holy Cross with 8:56 left in the second period, on assists from Anastasio and Chris Will.The undermanned Terriers battled valiantly throughout, but were clearly winded in the third period and couldn't mount an offensive attack, even when Siroky was pulled for an extra skater with 58 seconds left, giving Prep a 6-on-4 advantage.”We were running out of legs,” said St. Francis Prep's Matt McCloskey, whose brother Dan was one of several former players in attendance. “We were a little short on players but there's not much we can do about that. We just have to play with what we got and I think we're doing pretty good, trying the first place team one week and then losing by one goal the next (week), I'm pretty proud of that. Especially coming off a seven-game losing streak.”Added Siroky: “We did great. We lost the first game against them and we came back and the second game was a tie and we all played really hard and this game (Holy Cross) just gave a little more. We played as hard as we could but they just came out on top.”The win gives Holy Cross a 2-0-1 edge in the season series with St. Francis Prep. Prior to this year the two teams hadn't met in a league game and it's unlikely they will next year either. The last place team in each division moves down and the winner of the championship moves up. Should the two teams continue along their current form, Holy Cross will be in the 'A' division next season while St. Francis Prep, which was in the 'A' division last season, would be back in the 'C' division for the first time in three years.Holy Cross 4, Monsignor Farrell 1. Marko Krevatas opened the scoring on a pass from John Kiriakos, who scored on assists from John Quinn and Quinn set up the third goal, Kevin Kilpatrick's power play goal. Nick Rappold added an unassisted goal and Daniel Pastor made 27 saves for the Holy Cross junior varsity team Jan. 28.Stepinac 5, Holy Cross 2. Rappold scored on the power play, assisted by John Quinn and Taki Locasto netted the second goal on an assist from Pastor, who moved from the net to play defense. Chris Temperini made 24 saves for the Knights JV squad Jan. 24.Holy Cross 4, Fordham Prep 4. Krevatas scored his first hat trick of the season, Rappold added a power play goal and Pastor made 21 saves for the Holy Cross JV team Jan. 14.Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
