HUDSON – Both Ed Viola and Tim Clark were pleased with the way their teams played Wednesday night.
An odd response considering they played against each other, and one of them lost.
This time, it was the Hollis/Brookline High School boys hockey team that came out on the short end of a 4-1 loss to Souhegan in a Division III game at Cyclones Arena. The game was a rematch of last year’s semifinal, which the Sabers won to advance to their fourth straight championship game.
After this one, there were smiles all around.
Viola was pleased with the extra effort his players showed in playing team defense, a point the coaching staff had stressed in practice in the last week. Outside of a goal with a little more than a minute left in the game – when H/B had pulled its goalie – the Sabers held the Cavaliers in check, especially in the third period when H/B cranked up the pressure.
“The focus for the last week and a half has been better team defense,” Viola said. “We accomplished that tonight. We gave up one goal late. It worked perfectly. Everything we worked on in practice, they did tonight and that’s why we came out on top.”
The pressure that the Cavs applied was what made Clark happy. Other than a two-and-a-half minute stretch in the first period, when Souhegan scored three of its goals, the H/B coach felt his squad not only handled its own, but outplayed the Sabers at times.
“Would have liked to get a win, but I’m proud of them,” he said. “We had our chances. The puck was right in front a couple times and we were shooting it right at (Souhegan goalie Erik Hayden’s) glove. He’s got a good glove.”
While the Sabers played well in their own end, Viola knows that Hayden was just as responsible for the win as the way the team played defense.
“He had another outstanding game for us,” Viola said. “He’s been fantastic for us. He’s definitely taken the next step. Between his athletic ability and his work ethic, and the goalie coaches that we have, outstanding. That’s what has helped us all year long.”
It was H/B goalie Jake Hanhl who was coming up with big saves in the first period. But as the halfway point of the period approached, Quinn Carroll fired a shot from the middle of the zone that hit Hanhl and trickled into the net.
Joe Stacy and Isaiah Silvia-Chandley each added a goal in the next 2:21 to put the Sabers up 3-0 with 5:05 left in the first period. All three goals were scored from the same area in the center of the H/B zone, and once the Cavs figured out what Souhegan was trying to do, they adjusted.
“After we started knowing what they were doing, we started moving a guy out there,” Clark said. “We really took it to them. We got some shots, but the puck movement is just so slow.”
Where that hurt the Cavs the most was on the power play. H/B went 0-for-5 while Souhegan had a player in the penalty box, and during one man-advantage for the Cavs in the second period, the Sabers seemed to control play.
“If you have kids who are playing a diamond (defense) like that, it’s hard to work that,” Clark said. “They’ve got some kids who can handle the puck. If we’d knocked them down like we did in the middle of the second and the third period, then we would have had a better power play.”
The puck spent most of the third period in the Souhegan end, as H/B tried to get back into the game. But every time it seemed the Cavs had an opportunity to get on the board, Hayden was there to stop them.
“Even though, in the third period, it was down in our end, it was a great defensive period for us,” Viola said. “We didn’t let any shots get inside, and when we did, Erik Hayden was there.”
Zach Rotkowietz eventually got the Cavs on the board with 1:09 left in the game, but Dan Conroy pushed the lead back to three with an empty-net goal.
Both teams play again on Saturday before facing each other one more time on Monday at the Conway Arena in Nashua.
“I thought we played better, but we lost,” Clark said. “It happens. We’ll be ready to go again on Monday.”