Rams get better of Cumberland
Teams will meet again in Division I quarters
WOONSOCKET — Based on the evidence of Saturday night’s season finale at Adelard Arena, maybe it isn’t so bad the Cumberland hockey team will play top-seeded La Salle in the Division I quarterfinals.
Sure, the Rams completed the season sweep of the Clippers with a 4-1 victory, but Cumberland dominated long stretches of the first two periods and if it weren’t for a few missed opportunities in front of reserve goalie Calvin Orton, the Clippers would’ve been in position to pull off the upset win.
“I think we skated hard and played well and we had the opportunity to bury the puck – we just can’t bury the puck,” Cumberland coach Mark Andreozzi said. “If we could just take advantage of one of those opportunities in the first two periods it changes the landscape of the game. Does it change the outcome of the game? I don’t know, but it changes the landscape.”
Cumberland (3-10-2-1 Division I) gave itself a chance to claim at least a
point when Sam Juntunen redirected a shot from the point by Sean Meers past Orton (17 saves) with 5 minutes, 13 seconds left in the third period.
The Rams committed a penalty with 2:13 left in the period, and Andreozzi used his timeout to setup a play. Cumberland won the face-off, but they failed to test Orton and the Rams went the other way and iced the game on a Zenus Kennedy short-handed goal with 41 seconds left in the contest.
“Over the next week we’re just going to keep working on finishing,” said Andreozzi, whose team only lost two games by more than two goals this season. “I can’t play for them and we can’t score for them, they have to score for themselves. What makes it frustrating, but also makes it rewarding, is they’re working hard all game and creating opportunities. If we weren’t working hard, we wouldn’t be getting these scoring opportunities against a good team like La Salle.”
La Salle (14-1 Division I) will finish the regular season today against Moses Brown.
The Rams soaked up plenty of Cumberland pressure in the opening five minutes before taking advantage of a pair of Cumberland penalties to open the scoring. Seconds after the second penalty expired, John Devine pushed a loose puck past freshman goalie Jack Byrne for the only goal of the opening period.
Junior Manny Cabral had a pair of chances in the opening period, but both of his breakaway attempts were stopped by Orton. La Salle doubled its lead 9:54 into the second period when coach James Mello’s fourth line produced a goal as Nick Perella scored after good work by Kevin Kanaczet and James Louvet-McCue.
Cumberland should’ve gone into intermission down by just one, but Jack Malloy failed to hit the net from between the circles after good work by Cabral along the goal line.
“We just told them to keep doing what we’re doing and finish our chances,” Andreozzi said of his message between periods. “We just need to shoot the puck and get traffic to the net; we don’t want to do that, so we need to work on that.”
Ryan Schwender increased the lead to 3-0 4:59 into the third before Juntunen grabbed a goal back on the power play.