The Whaler boys hockey team went into Wednesday night’s matchup against the Barnstable Red Hawk’s Div. I hockey team understanding the importance of any points they could earn from the game. Since Nantucket is in Div. 4, they earn extra points for playing teams in higher divisions.
The Whalers didn’t beat the Red Hawks, but they tied them 2-2. Whaler forwards Riley Williams and Cole Evens scored Nantucket’s goals while center Cosmo Tedeschi notched a pair of assists. Their record now stands at 4-5-2 but because their strength of schedule is so strong, they find themselves sitting in the number 10 slot in the Div. 4 state tournament bracket as of today. There will be 36 teams that qualify for the tournament.
“The thing that has me the most happy is that I really like the way we are playing,” head coach Scott Corbett said. “We have consistency now. The kids are starting to believe not only in themselves but in their teammates. They are realizing they are a pretty good team when we play like this and we can pretty much play with anybody. We can stay in games and won’t get blown out by anybody. But man this is one of those games where you are like ‘god we really could have had that one.’”
The Whalers came out in first period playing a similar fashion to their performance against the Norwell Clippers on Sunday. Nantucket carried the play, but they were unable to bury any of their scoring chances.
But the Red Hawks weren’t planning to waste any scoring chances of their own. Senior forward Joseph Longueil found some open space at center ice with 4:50 left in the first period. Longueil performed a sudden deke around a Whaler defender, skated to his right, and slipped one past Whaler goalie Griffin Starr to give Barnstable a 1-0 lead off a beautiful goal with 4:42 left in the first period. Barnstable would bring that lead into the first intermission.
“We are just a little snakebitten and we need to start finding the back of the net,” Corbett said. “But they are doing what we asked and getting a lot of shots on net now. Now we have to shoot to score and pick our spots.”
The Whalers and Red Hawks played a pretty uneventful second period for the first 7:44 of the second period, but with 7:16 left there was a large scrum behind Starr’s net when defenseman Hunter Strojny cleared the crease to make sure Starr wasn’t being touched or hit by any Red Hawk’s players. The scrum appeared to light a fire under a Whaler team that had already been playing good hockey for the first half of the game.
With 4:06 left in the second period, junior winger Jack Billings picked up a loose puck, slowly crept to the Red Hawk net, and ripped a shot off the leg pad of sophomore goalie Jed Cormier. Cormier let up a rebound that Whaler wing Riley Williams pounced on and was able to bury to tie the game 1-1 going into the final period.
With 8:25 left in the game, Longueil raced to the left corner of the Whaler’s zone to pick up a loose puck, threw it on net from the corner, and the eventual rebound found eighth grader Chase Field who buried the puck on his second shot attempt to give the Red Hawks a 2-1 lead. It was a much-deserved goal for Field, who played a strong game and showed off his incredible speed all night long.
But the Whalers wouldn’t go quietly into the good night. Less than two minutes later, with 6:47 to go in the game, the Whalers had the Red Hawks hemmed in their own zone. They were all over Cormier’s crease getting excellent scoring chances when senior winger Cole Evens corralled the loose puck, scored, and enthusiastically celebrated the goal with his teammates in front of a raucous Red Hawk’s student section.
The Whalers and Red Hawks were tied 2-2 with under 30 seconds to go. Nantucket was able to get a pair of scoring chances in the final minute, but a poor pass sprung Red Hawk assistant captain Shea Semprini on a breakaway with 13 seconds left in regulation. Semprini deked to his left before going to his backhand, but Starr was up to the task and made an excellent glove save to send the game to overtime. Corbett said he believed it was Starr’s best save of the season.
“We had our chances to win but there is a lot of good that came out of this game,” Corbett said. “What I am most happy about is that we went down twice but fought back both times to tie the game. We had some great looks in the third and in overtime to win it. Griff had an incredible save at the end there and that is a save that will give him a lot of confidence. He played really well tonight.”
The two teams would ultimately go scoreless in the five minute overtime period and settle for the 2-2 tie.
“I’ll take a tie against a Div. I team any day,” Corbett said. “We had a nice three game stretch here where we tied two games and lost one, but we played well in all three games. We had opportunities to win both games we tied and the Norwell game (5-0) the score doesn’t show how close that game was at all. When I watched the tape back on that game I thought we should have been winning 4-2 after the second period.”
The Whalers were scheduled to play Martha’s Vineyard on Saturday, but the game was postponed due to the forecasted storm. A make-up date is to be determined. The Whalers will travel on Sunday for a 3:30 matchup against Mashpee/Monomoy.
