Crusaders take advantage of ‘flat’ Clippers

PORTSMOUTH — From the coach whose team sits atop Division IEccleston, Burrillville’s Bill Robinson, to the coach whose team entered Saturday night in the basement, Prout’s John Gaffney, the refrain is the same:

If you don’t play with energy and focus you’re going to lose because the six teams in the division are just too even.

One night after pushing D-I Cimini squad Smithfield to overtime, the Cumberland hockey team didn’t bring the requisite energy and effort to put away the Crusaders. The Clippers scored in the opening 50 seconds, but the Crusaders dominated long stretches of the game and left Portsmouth Abbey with a 4-3 win when freshman Michael Morrison scored with 2:29 left in regulation.

“We outworked them and we were the beneficiaries of good scheduling because they had a tough game last night with Smithfield,” Gaffney said. “Knowing that coming into the game, we just told the guys that they have to outwork them. And they did for most of the game and it was an exciting game.”

“I don’t feel like we played well at all,” Cumberland coach Mark Andreozzi said. “We were flat and they wanted it more than we did. No matter how much we talked about continuing the intensity we played with last night, this was a letdown. They wanted it more and this was the result.”

As much as Prout controlled the game, the Clippers were still in position to win the game when senior forward Jake Salisbury scored his second goal with 5:30 left in regulation when he scored on a power play after good work from Salvatore Ciolino and Andrew Rzemien.

The Crusaders committed another needless penalty moments later and it looked like Clipper leading scorer Bryan Colburn was going to score on an open net, but goalie Austin Gemma sprawled across his net and made a save with his stomach to keep the game tied.

“Gemma made some great saves late in the game,” Gaffney said. “I thought (Colburn) had him dead to rights, but he saved it with his belly. When you commit two penalties in a row late in the game and sometimes you can just give up goals, but we killed it off and scored a few shifts later.”

The Crusaders scored 83 seconds later when the Clippers failed to clear the puck from in front of goalie Justice Belmont and Morrison took advantage by slipping a shot past the senior goalie.

Cumberland (6-4-0-1 Division I Eccleston) dropped the season series to the Crusaders and has now lost two straight games after a four-game winning streak to start 2016.

“We have to be better on consecutive nights,” Andreozzi said. “We’ll get back at it next game.”

Prout (4-5 Division I Eccleston) moved into a three-way tie with Coventry and North Kingstown for fourth place in the division and the Crusaders have now won three of their last five contests.

Gaffney’s message to his team before the game started was to jump all over the Clippers, but that’s not what happened.

Just 50 seconds after the puck dropped Trevor Whalen skated into the Prout zone and fired a shot past Gemma.

The Clippers continued to outplay the Crusaders for long stretches of the opening period, but Prout scored the game’s next goal when junior Evan Eddleston gobbled up a loose puck and scored.

The ice tilted in the Crusaders’ favor in the second period and they took a deserved lead with 51 seconds left in the period on a tally by freshman Chris Leander. The lead, however, didn’t last until intermission because Salisbury scored with just five seconds left in the period.

The game’s turning point came just 1:27 into the third period when Ryan Whalen was given a five-minute major for boarding.

It took the Crusaders a while, but they finally took advantage of the power play when senior Nick Fogarty took a pass across the crease and slapped the puck into the open net.

Salisbury tied the game for the second time in as many periods, but the Clippers made one too many defensive mistakes and the Crusaders returned home from Aquidneck Island with a win. The Clippers look to right the ship Friday night in West Warwick against Coventry, while Prout heads to West Warwick Saturday night to face the Oakers.