by Brian O’Neill
Every year Central, Western Connecticut, the University of New Haven and UConn come to New Britain to compete for the Governor’s Cup. This season the Blue Devils looked to reclaim the cup and dethrone the back to back champions in UConn.
Central faced off against the Western Connecticut Colonials in the first round of the tournament on Friday, Nov. 21. In their last matchup Central defeated Western 16-3, and as always there was no lack of offense between the two teams on Friday.
Matt Lis scored his first goal of the night 6:45 into the first to put the Blue Devils on the scoreboard. Just two minutes later Western scored on a quick breakaway to tie the game at one. With 9:56 left in the period, Central responded when Andrew Mazurkiewicz won an offensive zone faceoff and passed the puck to Lis at the point for a slap shot goal, his second of the night.
Defensemen Brandon Grodzki followed Lis’ second goal by ringing home a one timer soon after with assists going to Connor Loree and Kyle Leyerzapf. The goal is the first for Grodzki this season. Down by two with 7:22 in the first, the Colonials regrouped and scored twice before the period ended to tie the game at 3-3. Throughout the first the Blue Devils looked disjointed, something head coach Ben Adams addressed at the first intermission.
“[I told them] that wasn’t our game; there were a lot of individual efforts going on,” Adams said. “We’re a five man unit that has to play and use everybody to be successful, so they started to play along those lines later in the game.”
The second period opened with Western receiving a double minor penalty three minutes in, giving Central a four minute power play. With the man advantage Central scored twice with one from Lis, his third of the game, with the assist from Leyerzapf. The second came from Mazurkiewicz, with Leyerzapf and Frank Pisano tallying assists.
With 10 minutes left the Blue Devils struck again, when Leyerzapf’s pass set Jack Johnson up for a breakaway goal to make the score 6-3. Western answered with a goal of their own, with eight minutes left in the period to make it a 6-4 game heading into the third.
The Blue Devils blew the game open, though, scoring eight goals in the closing period and shutting down the Colonials offense as well. At the buzzer the final score was 14-4. The Blue Devil goals in the third came from Pisano (who scored the first and last goals of the third), Lis, Johnson, Brenden Quirion, Ross Burton and Kevin San Angelo. After the game Matt Lis talked on his four goal night, saying
“Well it’s not just me it’s my teammates. I couldn’t score four goals without them. They set me up with the puck, I just finished,” said Lis.
“We gotta come together as a team, warm up, get it going early, dump and chase, bang bodies, get the puck in deep, get shots off, test the goalie, and just play our game,” he added of what the team needed to do in the championship game.
And coming off the blow out win, the Blue Devils were ready to do just when they took on reigning champion UConn Huskies. The student section was packed with rowdy fans to support the team and had Newington Ice Arena rocking, but once the puck dropped the Huskies were on the attack, scoring in the first minute on a redirection.
The momentum remained with the Huskies as they stayed in Central’s zone, scoring again four minutes into the period. Just a minute later, 5:29 into the period, Central’s Max Maffuci scored an unassisted goal to bring Central within one. For the rest of the period both teams fought to pull ahead, but the score stayed at 2-1 until the end of the period.
The second period Central came out aggressive, taking the body and checking anyone in a blue jersey when there was a chance. Seven minutes in, Lis caught a pass from Kyle Block and beat UConn’s goalie to tie the game. With the score even and the crowd roaring the Blue Devils had captured the momentum, but just 10 seconds later UConn’s Kenny Kochiss was checked into the boards and injured.
Because it was a spinal injury, the medical staff had to wait for an EMT unit to come and take Kochiss off the ice safely. After approximately 25 minutes they arrived and took Kochiss for further medical attention, but according to the trainers he’s expected to make a full recovery.
Coming off the injury UConn had a five minute power play and a rallying point to push off. The Huskies scored one goal on the five minute penalty and another off a turnover to make the score 4-2 UConn going into the third. In the final period UConn found the back of the net three more times, with the final score 7-2, and for the third year in a row UConn took home the Governor’s Cup.
With the Governor’s Cup over, Central club ice hockey is finished in Newington Ice Arena for the semester. On the schedule in December are four road games against Western, Boston College, NYU, and Endicott. The next home game will be Jan. 16 against the College of New Jersey.