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03/12/2014 12:00 AMHand boys' ice hockey's campaign has been full of both multiple-game winning and losing streaks and, unfortunately, the regular season ended on the latter.
Hand suffered a tough 5-4 home loss against Guilford on March 3 at the Northford Ice Pavilion in its regular season finale to snap the postseason-bound Tigers' three-game winning streak. After sophomore Alex Corso scored the eventual game-winner with 3:08 to play, the Tigers had a 6-on-3 advantage with 43 ticks left thanks to Hand's extra attacker, coupled with two Indians' penalties, but the Guilford defense turned away the Tigers to end the game.
"On that last sequence, we tried to get them spread out as much as we could and tried to get an easy opportunity to capitalize on," said Head Coach Ken Mitchell. "A lot of our offense tonight was one-and-done in the zone. We didn't maintain much puck possession and they were able to counterattack on us well."
Additionally in the contest, Guilford converted four Hand penalties into three power play scores as the Indians also outshot the Tigers 20-17. Junior Ben Solin, sophomores Jeffrey Rider and Michael Belliveau, along with freshman Chase Freiman each scored while senior Dan Braumann had two assists. In net, senior stopper Nathan McCann earned 15 saves.
"There were a lot of positives in that we found out things about guys that haven't gotten that much time yet," said Mitchell. "But we took too many penalties. Our execution also wasn't where we would like it, our focus was a little lax, and the attitude was a little loose for my liking."
Guilford (4-15) began the game with offensive pressure, yet Solin skated down the left side and slammed the puck into senior netminder Hunter Martins' right for the Tigers' (10-10) tally at 9:26 of the first period. Following a Hand power play for a Guilford trip, the Indians then got to take their first man-up shift and junior Jack Petrick capitalized on it at 2:51 for a 1-1 tie after a frame.
The second stanza saw a larger scoring spree with six tallies. First, Guilford took the 2-1 command 3:57 into the second with a power play strike from sophomore Will Dacey, although Hand answered right back with Rider finding the net from Braumann less than three minutes later to knot the score at 2.
Guilford retook the lead with 6:51 to go when sophomore Evan Powell slammed the puck in from the blue line on a power play before Belliveau and Freiman notched goals 64 seconds apart to give their squad the one-score lead. Dacey then shot another one in to even the matchup at 4 with 35.3 seconds remaining to conclude a wild 15 minutes.
Each side had their opportunities to grab the lead early in the third, yet Corso was true to the task for Guilford when he got the Indians the 5-4 command with 3:08 to go on his rebound to the right. After Hand put on the extra man, Guilford took two potentially costly tripping calls to set up the 6-on-3 scenario, but Martins and the defensive unit rose to the occasion and sealed the decision for the Indians.
The Tigers now focus on the Division II State Tournament as the No. 13 seed, which began on March 11 with first round play at No. 4 Newington-Berlin-Manchester. The four-round tournament culminates with the final on Friday, March 21 at Ingalls Rink in New Haven at 7:30 p.m. Mitchell added that it will take imitating the atmosphere of games in practice to ensure Hand stays sharp for the postseason.
"We are going to try and replicate game situations in practice to get them to battle and compete every day so that game rust isn't evident when we get rolling into the playoffs," said Mitchell.