EG too much for Burrillville

Avengers claim tournament title with impressive 3-1 road win

BURRILLVILLE — The Burrillville hockey team found out in Wednesday afternoon’s Burrillville Winter Classic de-facto title game the level it needs to play at to once again be the state’s public-school state champion.

For the second time in the first month of the season, the Broncos tussled with talented East Greenwich in a non-league contest. And, for the second time in the first month of the season, the Avengers proved to be the superior team.

Second-half goals from junior forwards

Cam Gaffney and Sonny Arsenault proved to be the difference in the Avengers’ 3-1 victory at Levy Rink to clinch the tournament title.

“We were outworked and if you get outworked, you’re going to lose,” Burrillville coach David Farrell said. “We need to play better and we have to work harder. We need to simplify what we’re doing and we need to take pride in what we’re doing. We give the puck away and don’t seem to care about it. We don’t want to be physical when they have the puck.

“There was a shift where [Gaffney and Colin Walsh] were running roughshod on us in our zone and no one took offense to that and give a little extra effort to stop it. We didn’t compete for 45 minutes.”

Burrillville (3-1-1) suffered its first defeat in regulation to finish second in its annual tournament for the third time in four seasons. The Broncos, who received a first-half goal from Ryan Frenette to tie the game, carry an undefeated Division I record into their first league road game of the season on Jan. 7 against Smithfield at Smithfield Municipal Rink.

“We have a bunch of league games in front of us, so this isn’t the end of the world,” Farrell said.

“This week wasn’t all bad because we won two of the three. The season is a process and a real grind. When we laced them up for the first game there wasn’t an expectation of going 24-0, that’s for sure.”

East Greenwich (4-2-1) rebounded from an overtime loss to Moses Brown in its opening game to win the tournament with victories over North Attleboro and the Broncos. The Avengers, who are 2-1 in Division I play, grabbed the lead in the first half after extended time in Burrillville’s zone when Peter Doorley created a chance for junior Michael Healey to finish. Freshman goalie Devlin Mansolf made 10 saves in his half of work.

Even though they where outplayed for long stretches of the half, the Broncos managed to tie the game at 16:51 when leading scorer Cam DeSante worked the puck into the offensive zone. The senior fed Jack Farrell, whose shot was saved right into the path of Frenette for a tap-in goal.

East Greenwich came out in the second half and produced 10 of the first 11 shots to put the contest away. After senior goalie Bryden Hopkins kept his team in the game with a flurry of saves, the Broncos earned a power play, but a turnover led to Charlie Gaffney firing a stretch pass to older brother Cameron, who scored on a breakaway at 8:52.

The Avengers added an insurance goal at 11:03 thanks to the hard work of Walsh, who created an opportunity for Arsenault to finish.

Farrell used his timeout after the goal to refocus his squad. The move seemed to pay off because sophomore Joey DeCesare and Stevie Rodrigues both had great scoring chances over the next six minutes, but senior goalie Cole Barron was up to the task. The Avenger stopped 15 of the 16 shots he saw.

“I don’t know if that stuff we did late was so much what we did, they probably just let up a little late in the game with the lead,” Farrell said. “I’ve been on the other side of that one. It was too little, too late. We need to play better and we still have a lot to work on.”