Mount St. Charles stops Cumberland
Mounties close in on home-ice advantage
WOONSOCKET — A Cumberland resident scored the game-winning goal Friday night at Adelard, but unfortunately for the Cumberland hockey team junior forward Alex Pratt plies his trade at Mount St. Charles.
Just 32 seconds into Friday night’s highly-anticipated Division I showdown between the Valley rivals, Pratt gobbled up a loose puck off of the stick of Clipper freshman goalie Jack Byrne and fired a low, tight-angled shot into the net to lead the Mounties to a 3-0 victory over the Clippers.
“I thought we played really well,” Mount St. Charles coach Dave Belisle said. “This was a good game for us and I thought our puck movement was really good. Overall, the effort was there and it needs to be because this is the type of team we are. We’re going to have to grind every win out. Cumberland is a hard team to play because they play every team tough, including us.”
“The effort’s been good and it’s been good all year, but we just can’t bury the puck in the net,” Cumberland coach Mark Andreozzi said. “We just can’t find a way to finish, that’s the way it’s been all season.”
Mount St. Charles (7-4-3 Division I) finally earned its first victory over one of its Valley rivals this season after earning just a point in two games
against Burrillville and settling for a 1-1 tie with the Clippers earlier in the season when the game was called after two periods because of a broken Zamboni.
The Mounties are still very much alive for the No. 3 seed in the upcoming playoffs with just two road games left in the season. The Mounties head to Cranston Vets tonight to take on the improving Falcons before finishing the season against Jacob Steckler, Jacob Studley and red-hot Moses Brown next weekend.
“We’re shooting for as high as we can go and we’re looking to finish the season with three victories – this was the first one,” Belisle said. “We have another tough game against Cranston West, which is playing really well right now. They have a good goaltender and they play good defense, so that’s going to be a tough test for us.”
Mount sophomore goalie Michael Hauswirth continues to play the best hockey of his young career, as he recorded 13 saves for the shutout. Byrne was superb after the first goal and made 22 saves.
Cumberland (3-9-2-1 Division I) closes out the regular season next Saturday against top-seeded La Salle. The game will be a preview of a Division I quarterfinal series because the Clippers likely won’t jump Burrillville or Cranston West.
The Mounties, who are coming off an out-of-state loss to Springfield’s Pope Francis, jumped all over the Clippers from the opening whistle. The Mounties quickly dumped the puck in the zone and Byrne could only push the puck to the side where Pratt was there to fire a shot into the net. Junior Jacob Maddalena earned an assist on the play.
The goal was Pratt’s sixth of the season and he’s turned into the Mounties’ primary goal scorer after the loss of two key starters earlier in February.
“He is that goal scorer we need in the playoffs,” Belisle said. “We’re getting good production out of our wings. We made a little adjustment by putting John Belisle to center and moving Michael [Canavan] out of the middle and it worked.”
The Mounties carried the play early in the second period and could’ve been up by two goals, but Byrne denied Trey Bourque from the slot. Seconds later, the Clippers nearly scored, but a shot from below the left circled slid past Hauswirth’s right post.
Mount doubled its lead early in the third period when Belisle found Maddalena for a goal from the right circle. Cumberland nearly grabbed a goal back a few minutes later, but freshman Jake McMillen ripped a shot off the post.
Maddalena scored an empty-net goal to ice the game.
“The is what we need to do to win games,” Belisle said. “We need to limit the chances because we’re going to play 1-nothing, 2-nothing games. We’re going to play close games, so we need to limit the real good opportunities in front of net. We worked on that all week in practice.”