Stone lifts Broncos
Senior scores twice in OT win over Clippers
BURRILLVILLE — The Cumberland hockey team didn’t have any three-point weekends in its first campaign in Division I, but coach Mark Andreozzi still wasn’t pleased Saturday night.
That’s because longtime rival Burrillville ended the first weekend of the admittedly long Division I campaign on top of the division after producing a pair of impressive victories.
One night after earning a bit of revenge against last season’s Division I champion Prout, the Broncos overcame a number of penalties to earn a 2-1 overtime victory over the Clippers at Levy Rink.
Bronco senior defenseman Colin Stone delivered his second goal of the night with 18 seconds left in overtime when he ripped a shot from the top of the left circle that evaded Clipper freshman goalie Jack Byrne.
“The kids worked hard and they’ve been working hard in practice,” first-year Burrillville coach David Farrell said.
“We’re very happy to be 2-0. It wasn’t perfect and we still have a lot of things to fix, but it’s nice to be 2-0 right now. We’re just working on the fundamentals and competing. We’re just keeping it simple early in the season.”
“I guess you’re fortunate enough to get a point, but you’re distraught that you didn’t play well and you took stupid penalties,” Andreozzi said. “We were not disciplined. I told them between periods, ‘Why are you getting away from what you did yesterday to what you’re doing now?’ A lot of it had to do with how well Burrillville played.”
Burrillville (2-0 Division I) received a second straight solid effort from senior goalie Matt Heon, who spent last season behind co-starters Billy Robinson and Bryan McConnell. Heon and the Broncos defeated the Crusaders Friday night in West Warwick behind five points from freshman forward Ryan Deschamps.
Saturday, the Broncos never had a chance to develop a rhythm in the opening period because they spent half the period killing off power plays. The Clippers (1-0-1 Division I) had four power-play chances in the opening period, but they failed to properly test Heon.
“That is definitely something we have to clean up,’ Farrell said. “Sometimes you’ll have nights like that where you have really dumb penalties and some where you’re trying to make a play and a stick gets caught under a skate. It seemed like we were in the box the whole first period. It’s something we have to clean up.”
After the Clippers failed to score on a five-on-three in the opening period, the Broncos had a two-man advantage of their own for 50 seconds at the end of the second period.
They didn’t score, but they eventually found their way past Byrne just 4:24 into the final period when Stone took a pass from blue-line partner Colin McCarthy and fired a shot from the left circle that eluded the freshman.
Cumberland responded at 7:18 when Jackson Shevlin found Stephen Ciolino skating into the offensive zone. For the second straight night, the junior scored, this time when he found the corner of Heon’s net.
“You’re happy and you’re sad about this one. You’re happy because you got a point and did some good things, but there’s a lot to look at because we didn’t play well,” Andreozzi said a night after his team defeated Cranston co-op, 5-1. “It was an up-and-down game.”
Burrillville skated away with the extra point when Stone scored an unassisted goal with 18 seconds left in overtime.