This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.

T-Birds Ousted in First Round by North Haven

The North Branford ice hockey team saw its campaign conclude with a 6-2 loss to North Haven on March 11 at Northford Ice Pavilion in the first round of the Division II State Tournament.

The 12th-seeded Thunderbirds, who finished at 10-11, couldn't handle the No. 5 seed Indians for all three periods, allowing five unanswered goals, including four in the third.

The momentum of the game changed for North Branford when assistant captain Alec Martone went down with an apparent shoulder injury at the beginning of the second period. During his first shift of the period, Martone was sent down hard to the ice, got up and immediately skated to the bench, and threw his stick in frustration while clutching his shoulder. Martone's injury added to the T-Birds' already long list, causing them to fall even further behind when it came to available bodies.

"We just ran out of horses," Coach Ralph Shaw said. "We're missing three out of our lineup with injuries late in the season and then Martone tonight. It's tough to recover, but I thought we did a nice job."

North Branford did what it could to make this a game, sending the contest into the third period all tied up. North Haven opened the scoring midway through the first period when Pasquale Liuzzi's shot knuckled past goalie Will McEwen. Liuzzi skated up the right side and threw a backhanded shot on goal. It was deflected by North Branford's Tanner Opie and floated just out of the reach of McEwen, who was sliding in the opposite direction due to the initial trajectory of the shot. The T-Birds answered right away when Dominic Raccio found the back of the net. He controlled the puck behind the goal, skated to the front, and put a shot through the wickets of North Haven keeper Andrew Graziano.

"That's something we talked about. We wanted to keep the shots down because the kid Graziano has good hands," Shaw said. "He's going to stop the pucks that are high so we wanted to make sure we got pucks down low, on net, on his pads, and look for rebounds. That was pretty much our game plan of keeping them low."

Following the Martone injury, Brendan Appi and Adam Burkle teamed for North Branford's second goal. Appi stole the puck in the neutral zone and rushed in 2-on-1 with Burkle. He, too, shot low, causing a juicy rebound to await Burkle for an easy goal.

For the rest of the game, however, North Branford was on its heels and North Haven (13-7-3) was in control. Cam Owens tied the game 2-2 with just less than four to play to send the game into the third knotted up.

Owens's goal appeared to change momentum as North Haven came out firing in the third. McEwen made consecutive glove saves to open the period to keep the puck out of the net, but the Indians scored a strange goal at the 12:13 mark to take the lead. After a faceoff, a shot was blasted on McEwen and he made the save, yet North Haven's Mike Tantorski poked home what appeared to be a loose puck behind the keeper to give the Indians the lead for good at 3-2.

"They said it squirted through and was sitting behind him and we just didn't help him out and freeze the puck for him and they popped it in," Shaw said.

North Haven added its insurance markers late. First, Vin Fasulo scored with 2:16 remaining when a loose puck squirted to him all alone in front of the net. He avoided a poke-check from McEwen with a toe-drag, waited him out, and beat him to the glove side. Tyler Luedee then scored an empty-net goal about a minute following that and Liuzzi netted his second score of the game with 33 seconds left.

"People are going to see that the score was 6-2 and think it was a blowout, but you know, it was 2-2 in the third period so I was pleased with our effort," Shaw said. "We did a nice job."