WW-P takes advantage of powerplay to down Lawrence

WEST WINDSOR >> With the holiday season of giving upon us, the West Windsor-Plainsboro ice hockey team was happy to accept a gift.

WW-P was presented with a five-minute major penalty at the end of the first period, which ignited a 7-4 victory over Lawrence on Wednesday at Mercer County rink.

Leading 1-0, Lawrence was whistled for the major with 3:53 remaining in the period, giving West Windsor five minutes of power play time no matter how many goals scored. WW-P (12) promptly scored three goals within one minute and maintained control throughout for its first victory.

“That was important because they scored the first goal so clearly they had the momentum,” said Tom Gardner, who had two goals and an assist. “But us getting that penalty, instead of half hearting it we got the three goals and that changed the game.”

Jonah Levy got things started with an unassisted goal with 3:39 remaining. Gardner scored 47 second later, and Kal Inoue capped the uprising 13 seconds after that.

“That really helped,” WW-P coach James Nobilio said. “It was really nice having five minutes of freedom. The power play worked pretty well tonight so that was good. That was probably the best they did so far this season.”

The veteran power play unit of Gardner, Levy, Chris Cordasco, Aidan Crichton and Valentin Aleynik tallied four times in the game.

“I think what helps is all our power play guys have been together for a year and a half now, so it’s big for us for passing and knowing where we need to be,” Gardner said. “There’s only one new guy (Levy) on it, so getting him filled in was not hard.”

Aleynik scored an evenstrength goal early in the second period, and Levy and Andrew Huang tallied late in the period as WW-P opened a 6-1 lead.

In fairness to the Cardinals (1-4), they had to be somewhat tired as they were coming off their first win of the season in game with Steinert that ended just 17 hours earlier. Credit to Lawrence that it kept playing hard and outscored West Windsor 3-1 in the final period, although the goals came late when the outcome was decided.

Will Kocsis had two goals and two assists for L-H-E while Spencer Cohen had two goals and one assist. Levy scored twice for the Pirates, Kal Inoue and Huang had one goal and one assist each and Crichton added two assists as a young team got a boost.

“This feels really nice,” Nobilio said. “We really needed that. We’ve been working hard through all the games, we were just playing against better teams. We were getting things together, meshing the lineup. So it was nice to get that first win. We were playing a game where we were able to pick it up and you’re able to keep it going and feel that confidence where things are starting to work out and you just keep going.”

Gardner felt it was a matter of keeping focus after Lawrence took the lead.

“We were playing some good opponents in our first two games,” he said. “We would play well in the first period but would get down by one or two goals and instead of playing through, we got down on ourselves. So to come out and win this game was important for us.

“I feel like now we realize ‘Hey, we’re not really bad, we can go out and play against teams in our division.’ Coming out here and winning really helped our morale. As a team we’re starting to come together. With this win, we’ll go into practice tomorrow and work even harder than we have been.”

Lawrence (1-4) WW-Plainsboro (1-2) 103—4 331—7

Goals: L-Cohen 2, Kocsis 2. W-Levy 2, Gardner 2, Inoue, A. Huang, Aleynik. Assists: L-Pirone, Kocsis 2, Kocherman, Cohen. W-Crichton 2, Gardner, Inoue, A. Huang, Schwalb, Cordasco, S. Huang, Groppe. Shots: L-16, W-39. Saves: L-Hindash 32. W-Doody 9, Tummalapali 3.

Follow Rich Fisher on twitter @fish4scores