Saratoga skates past Shen, 5-3
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. – Saratoga Springs ice hockey Coach Dave Torres couldn’t stop smiling and Shenendehowa Coach Juan de la Rocha couldn’t have looked more frustrated at the end of Wednesday night’s rivalry game at the Capital Arena as the Blue Streaks skated away with the first of two meetings, 5-3.
Saratoga (3-1 league, 6-2 overall) saw junior captain Mack Ogden score a pair of goals and net minder Brad Blake turn back 21 shots in the annual road trip to Clifton Park.
“It was a good team effort, our fore check was working well and the boys bought into it, practicing well all week,” Dave Torres said. “The atmosphere, we talked about it and it worked out for us.
“We just utilized our speed to get to the puck and their defensemen were having a hard time getting out of our pressure and that’s when our fore check was successful.”
The Blue Streaks never trailed Wednesday night as junior forward Anthony LeMonda and Ogden put Saratoga up by two goals in the first seven minutes of the first period.
The Plainsmen (2-2 league, 4- 4 overall) cut the lead in half on senior forward Carter Hansen’s goal with 3:29 left in the first.
The Shen coaching half was willing to take a one-goal deficit heading into the break.
“The message between the 1st and 2nd was ‘Guys, we played aw-
ful in that period and the score was 2-1 and the shots were 11 to 10. Don’t let it get off your game, you’ve got two more 17 minute periods to figure this out and we didn’t play well and it’s a 2-1 game. You’ve got plenty of time,’” Shenendehowa Coach Juan de la Rocha said. “We tried to put a positive spin on it, but it was one of those nights where we were fighting it, we didn’t have our jump and we got outworked.
Saratoga’s Joe Amodio took back the two-goal lead six minutes into the second period, giving the Plains-
men some hope before Blue Streak sophomore Devon Wormley ripped the net behind the Shen goal line for the 4-2 lead just over a minute into the third period.
Shenendehowa answered the bell three minutes late when junior Tyler Sullivan beat Blake for the first time Wednesday night.
Ogden scored his second goal of the night with 8:45 left in the contest for the three-goal lead.
“The last few games we haven’t played a full game, our third period has been kind of slow,” Mack Ogden said. “We just wanted to come out and keep our momentum going through the whole game.
“I’m just happy we came
out with the win. We won here my freshman year, when we win at Shen there is nothing like it in the section. It’s so great.”
His first period tally, the opening goal by Devon Wormley was enough to see the Blue Streaks through.
“It’s always nice when you get that first period you get your confidence up, everybody starts to get into the game a little bit more and everyone starts to work that much harder,” Ogden said. “It gets all the blood going, everyone’s adrenaline starts pumping, everyone just gets that much more into the game. I said it before, there really is nothing more like it.”
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