No. 3 Fairfield co-op, No. 4 Darien play to tie
DARIEN — The Fairfield co-op team was minutes away from the end of their unbeaten season, trailing Darien by one goal.
With 50.9 seconds left Matt Jankovsly took a pass from behind the net to tie the game and send it to overtime.
Jankovsly was on the ice for over a minute at that point.
“I knew there was only a minute left, so I stayed out there,” he said. “Finn (Hoey) made a nice play, put it out in front and I got lucky.” The game ended in a 2-2 tie after overtime.
“It’s was a great high school hockey game between two great public school (teams),” Darien coach Mac Budd said.
The two teams met on Wednesday and No. 3 Fairfield
co-op came back — twice — to beat No. 4 Darien, 4-3.
“I felt that we played a much better game than we did the other night,” Budd said. “It was close as well, but tonight there was more intensity, more urgency, felt we played with more grit tonight and it showed.”
Darien had three goals waved off during the game. Two came on high sticking calls and one came with an apparent quick whistle in the third period — a goal that would have given the Blue Wave a two-goal advantage.
“I felt he was in very good position to see those (high sticks), I can’t call those from the bench,” Budd said. “The whistle, he lost sight of the puck and blew the whistle. There is no doubt about that.
“It turned out that it probably could have been a quick whistle, but that’s just part of the game. Part of the ebbs and flows of a hockey
game.”
Fairfield co-op’s Bobby Winter scored early in the first period and Darien tied the game in the second period on a Tauson Pfeifle goalie. Darien took the lead in the third when Danny Lowe deflected the puck into the back of the net.
With 1:50 left in the game, Fairfield co-op coach Carl Larouche called a timeout and told his team that when they got possession of the puck in the offensive zone they would pull goalie John Grace.
With the goalie out and the extra skater for Fairfield co-op, Darien had two good chances to ice the game, but weren’t able to convert.
“We got lucky a little bit