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03/12/2014 12:00 AMThe North Branford ice hockey team finished the regular season 10-10 after winning its final game, 3-2, against Brookfield-Bethel-Danbury on March 5 at Northford Ice Pavilion. The win was especially important for the outgoing seniors to finish strong.
"As a senior, we talked to the team and we wanted to go 10-10 and go even," said defensive captain Brendan Appi. "We wanted to leave off on a good note and not a bad note on the end of our season. We pulled it off so at least it was something and we now have the playoffs to look forward to."
The T-Birds scored all three of their goals during a two-and-a-half-minute span in the first period with Appi getting the ball rolling at the 3:54 mark while down 1-0. Less than a minute after BBD's Steve Almeida scored on a deflection for a power play goal to take the lead, Appi fired a shot from the point through traffic and past goalie James Van Tronk. It was a seeing-eye shot that found its way past four skaters untouched and into the back of the net.
"It wasn't the best shot, but as our coaches say, we just have to get it on net," Appi said. "Somebody's in front; we just have to hope for the best so we just need to go for the net at that point."
Domenic Raccio had a hand in the next two goals that took place just 15 seconds apart from one another. Jared Neubig skated with Raccio on a 2-on-1 chance and barreled into Van Tronk. The puck was sitting all alone in the crease and Raccio tapped in the easy goal. Off the ensuing faceoff, Raccio corralled the puck behind the net and found Adam Burke on the hashes for the score.
"It was a dump and chase and we just got the puck down low. The puck squirted out and I just picked it up and put it to the front of net," Raccio said of the play. "I saw Burke and he finished it."
That was all the support goalie Will Burke would need in this one as he surrendered two goals on 14 shots. Defensively, the Thunderbirds were aggressive in taking the opposition's body and did a great job of staying in shooting lanes to prevent most shots from even getting to Burke.
Joe Britton was able to beat Burke for BBD (2-17) midway through the second period as he scored on a snap shot after a pass from behind the net. After that goal cut North Branford's lead to one, you could sense the T-Birds' fatigue setting in after the previous night's close loss to Amity.
"It's tough to play back-to-back games. We came out and played Amity last night in a close game. We really worked hard last night and we have a couple guys that are out so we have a short bench and to play two games in two nights, it's tough," said Head Coach Ralph Shaw. "We came out, played as hard as we could, and just ran out of gas pretty much in the third period, but managed to hang on and get the W."
More importantly than getting to .500 for this squad was the boost of confidence this close win could bring. The T-Birds recently lost narrow decisions to both Hand and Amity and winning a close game right before the Division II State Tournament could be beneficial for the group.
"It's been close for us. We haven't been playing our best, but after this one, it kind of gives us some hope again," Appi said. "Hopefully, this one kind of boosts us up a little bit so we can start working on what we need to."