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Top: Woodstock Academy celebrated Military Appreciation Night in their camo jerseys. Donny Sousa scored the only goal in the 4-1 loss for the Centaurs. Above: Ryan Wallace attempts to dig the puck out from the side boards. Photos by Sam Clark/Woodstock Academy.
Centaurs bounce up to third in Div. II rankings
It’s amazing what one win can do for a hockey team sometimes.
The Woodstock Academy boys’ hockey team went into its game with Smithfield, in 10th place in the CIAC Div. II state playoff rankings.
A 1-0 victory over the Sentinels, last week however, quickly changed that.
The win over the Div. I school from Rhode Island elevated the Centaurs to third in the Div. II standings.
Coach Mark Smolak said: “That’s nice. We still have four games left. We just have to keep playing the way we played (versus Smithfield) and for the majority of the last two weeks and we should be able to get a little higher.”
The Centaurs have only one game next week, a home match against Daniel Hand on Wednesday at 5:15 p.m.
They finish up with three games in the same week the following week as they travel to Burrillville. R.I. on Tuesday, play at Simsbury on Wednesday and finish up the regular season on Saturday, Feb. 24 with a 7 p.m. home game vs. Notre Dame-Fairfield.
It was a good rebound for Woodstock (7-9) against Smithfield.
The Centaurs were coming off what most would agree was a disappointing, 4-1, loss to Suffield-Granby-Windsor Locks on Monday.
“We had been preaching about covering the middle of our net, not letting guys in front of the slot on the defensive side. Offensively, I’ve been preaching all year that when you reach the red line, dump it in and let the forecheck go to work,” Smolak said.
Woodstock was effective in both phases against the Sentinels (9-9) but their goalie, Matt Bradley, played well.
“It was a closer game on the scoresheet than it actually felt at the game because we had sustained pressure and had the puck in their end the whole game,” Smolak said. “But out of the goalies we’ve seen, in terms of technique, he was one of the most technically sound. His lateral movement, his quickness, the speed and his glove so we knew we had to get tips and rebounds off this kid.”
As a result, the Centaurs weren’t able to push one into the net until the second period and it didn’t come from a likely source.
Keegan Covello won a faceoff in the Sentinels’ end, got the puck to Sam Desmond who took a quick wrist shot and it found a hole.
“That’s one of the things we need to see more of, developing offense from the defensive zone. We spend a lot of time cycling, we kind of forget about getting the puck from low-to-high. It’s something that, hopefully, we can get confidence in and be able to use it,” Smolak said.
Woodstock goalie Devlin Mansolf did the rest as he delivered his second shutout in a Centaurs’ uniform, making 23 saves.
The Centaurs celebrated Military Appreciation Night on Monday, but unfortunately, were not the ones doing the celebrating at the end as the Wildcats (11-4) posted the victory.
Austin Renggli put SGWL up, 1-0, with a goal 9:39 into the first period. Noah Boyd made that hold up for a long time. The junior goalie turned in 31 saves for the Wildcats, some of the eye-opening variety.
“It’s not every day that you have that many breakaways and he made a lot of solid saves, a lot of great saves,” Smolak said. “What he did really well from a goaltender’s perspective was all three of the forwards who had breakaways and chances, he was patient on. If you watched his body language and movement, he was staying with the puck, and was making them make the first move.”
The Centaurs did tie the game.
Woodstock went into the third period with a brief two-man advantage but a longer 5-on-4 scenario and capitalized 41 seconds in.
Maxx Corradi dug the puck off the back side boards and slung it to Donny Sousa who found space to the right of Boyd. He slapped one high over Boyd’s left shoulder to tie the contest.
But tying the game didn’t produce as much momentum as Woodstock had hoped.
“(SGWL) is a good team, they’re up there toward the top (in Div. III) and this game meant so much to them points-wise. When you get down a goal again, there is only so much that can happen before you start on time,” Smolak said.
He was referring to the previous three games where the Centaurs had dug themselves a 2-0 hole against both New Canaan and Bishop Hendricken and lost and were behind by a hat trick to Fairfield Warde-Ludlowe before posting a 6-5 win.
“We gave (SGWL) that one-goal lead, their goalie is playing out-of-his-mind well. They only needed two goals and we’re a team that usually puts up three or four (goals) a game,” Smolak said.
A goal by Ben Wasko with 3:40 to play was all Boyd truly needed to post the win.
But Renggli added another just 1:09 later and with 1:22 left, Ryan Hughes found the empty net to account for the final score.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
.