Boys Hockey Struggles In Rematch Against Sandwich

The Whaler boys hockey team went into Thursday’s rematch with the Sandwich Blue Knights feeling confident about the way they were playing. After losing to the Blue Knights 5-1 in their season opener, the Whalers won two in a row, including a 4-1 victory over their biggest rival Martha’s Vineyard on Sunday.

But the Whalers were unable to get much going against the Blue Knights, losing the game 7-1. They were outscored 12-2 combined between the two games against Sandwich.

“Too many mistakes,” head coach Scott Corbett said. “We pinched too many times when we shouldn’t have. We gave up too many two on one, odd man rushes. We just had too many mental errors in that first period and you can’t go down 4-1 to a team like that. You will never claw your way back against them.”

The Whalers allowed the first goal of the game with 8:11 left in the opening period and proceeded to give up three goals in 39 seconds, which put them in a 4-0 hole less than eight minutes into the game.

“Sandwich has really solid goaltending and we can’t play like we did to begin the game and expect to claw our way back,” Corbett said. “We only had four defensemen tonight, which was difficult and didn’t allow us to sit some guys for a bit to regroup, but overall we just weren’t good enough.”

Braden Knapp scored by burying a rebound chance set up by Ryan Davis to make it 4-1 with 1:09 remaining in the first period, but that was all the offense the Whalers were able to generate in this one. They allowed two more goals in the second period and one more in the third period.“That will be one of the top teams in Div. 4 so if we are going to be able to compete come tournament time that is going to be the level we need to play at,” Corbett said. “So this was some humble pie for us. This game shows the kids that level they need to reach. But they kept fighting and playing all night. I thought Griffin (Starr) played a great game in net. We just hung him out to dry and we let him know that.”