The West Haven Squirt A travel hockey team opened the weekend with a strong win over Yale A on Saturday morning before losing a pair of games to Northeastern A and Greenwich A on Sunday. The Westies are now 8-5-1 overall on the season.
On Saturday morning at Edward L. Bennett Rink, the Westies hosted the Yale Bulldogs A team. At the end of an evenly played first period, West Haven’s Ryan Pniewski passed to Jonathan Charbonneau for a shot from the blue line. Ethan Kelly redirected the puck past the goaltender for the 1-0 lead. Yale tied it half way through the second period, before Sean Studley went five-hole on a breakaway with Cameren Lipford assisting to give the Westies a 2-1 lead.
Lipford was later denied on his own breakaway, but Ethan Kelly buried the rebound and West Haven led 3-1 going into the third period. Just 14 seconds into the third, Studley’s backhand redirection of Leo Mazuroski’s point shot made it 4-1. Yale made it 4-2 with a short-handed goal, but the Blue Devils capitalized on the power play when Studley found Lipford in front for a wrist shot. Maddex LaFountain made the lead stand up and finished with 15 saves to earn the win between the pipes for West Haven.
The Blue Devils headed to Storrs on Sunday morning to face the Northeastern Huskies on the UConn campus. UConn assistant coach and West Haven native Joe Pereira arranged for a tour of the UConn Huskies locker room before the game. Northeastern jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, before Studley hit ahead to Lipford who coolly cashed in the breakaway to cut it to 2-1. The Huskies scored the only goal of the second period, but Ethan Kelly took the opening faceoff of the third period directly to the net and jammed it home to make the score 3-2. Northeastern scored a power play goal later in the game and the Westies could not find the back of the net again and fell 4-2. LaFountain made 18 saves in the game.
The Westies returned home to face Greenwich on Sunday afternoon at Bennett Rink. The speedy Greenwich team opened a 7-0 lead through two periods before West Haven got on the board. Lipford ripped a wrist shot with Studley assisting to make it 7-1. Studley scored off a scramble in front of the Greenwich net and later added another goal with Ethan Kelly assisting, but Greenwich was too much and skated to the 8-3 win. LaFountain recorded 13 saves in net for the Westies.
The West Haven Peewee A travel hockey team split a pair of games this weekend. The Westies fell to ECHO in Bolton on Saturday, before rebounding to defeat Greenwich Skate Club at home Sunday morning.
On Saturday, after a scoreless first period, ECHO took control of the game with six second period goals on its way to a 7-4 victory over the Westies. Mickey Dowd led the way with three goals, while Zach Goetze added two assists.
Dowd get West Haven on the board with an unassisted goal to start the third period, before Haygen Axelrod scored off an assist from Ray Heenie. Goetze set up Dowd twice in the final three minutes, but the comeback fell short.
West Haven rebounded with a 7-3 victory over Greenwich Skate Club Sunday morning in West Haven. Goetze led the way with three goals, Mike Page scored twice, Michael Madera had one goal and three assists, and Dowd added one goal and two assists.
Trailing 1-0, Page evened the contest with an unassisted goal with 4:26 remaining in the first period. Dowd gave the Westies the lead for good when he scored off an assist from Madera 1:48 later.
Goetze scored a power play goal off an assist from Madera 2:07 into the second for a 3-1 lead, before the same combination connected again as Goetze’s second goal gave the Westies a 4-1 lead.
Goetze scored his third straight goal, this one short-handed, for a 5-1 lead 3:54 into the third. Dowd set up Page, and Madera scored West Haven’s final goal, both in the final five minutes for a 7-2 advantage.
Bryan Hong and Jacob Silva were stellar in goal, while Heenie, Bruno Martone, Dylan Bosworth, Axelrod and Jason Alling played solid defensively.
The West Haven Youth Hockey Bantam A travel hockey team won both games it played this weekend, knocking off both their opponents in their two games of the weekend.
On Saturday, the Blue Devils welcomed the Putnam Panthers and skated to a 9-0 win.
Mike Alfano got the scoring started early in the first period with an unassisted goal. Anthony Peschell netted one shortly after with Carl Murgo getting the helper. Later in the first, Alfano scored his second of the contest with Luca Ubaldi getting the assist.
Matt Morgan scored a minute later to bring the score to 4-0 at the end of the first period. Morgan scored again to start the second period, with an assist coming from Joe D’Aurio. Cade Simone got an unassisted goal just 30 seconds later and Joey Honcz buried the puck in the back of their net with an assist from Ubaldi two minutes later.
Nolan Cole scored his first goal of the year to make it 8-0 as Sean Bosworth got the assist. Ubaldi got the final goal for the Westies to make it 9-0 on an unassisted tally. Brendan Smith and Michael Andreesen split time in goal for the combined shutout. Matt Wezenski and Colin Deane both has strong efforts in the contest.
On Sunday, the Westies took a trip down I-95 to Norwich to take on the Southeastern Seahawks and skated to a 6-1 victory.
After the Seahawks scored early in the first three minutes, Alfano scored late in the first for the Blue Devils to get the game started.
After a scoreless second period by both teams, it was all West Haven the third period. Alfano scored his second goal of the game and his fourth of the weekend with 9 minutes left in the third. Peschell scored four minutes later with Ubaldi getting the assist, and Murgo scored an unassisted goal just a minute later.
Dante Hardt scored a nice goal from a great pass from Adrian Fielosh to make it 5-1. Jayden Spreyer scored the final goal for the Westies on an unassisted tally.
Andreesen and Smith split time again in the game in goal, combining to only allow one goal and keep the Blue Devils in the game. Justin Pniewski, Ryan Bernardi and Kevin Gardner all played well in the win.