HAMILTON TOWNSHIP, N.J.—The playoff environment gave The Hun School Raiders a spring in their step. Brendan Marino scored goals as the Raiders kicked off the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference Tuesday afternoon with a 5-2 win over Malvern Prep in a play-in game at Ice Land.
The win advances the fourth-seeded Raiders (10-12 overall) to the APAC semifinals; They’ll oppose La Salle on February 22 at 4:00 at Hatfield Ice. Fifth-seeded Malvern Prep (8-7) will be idle until the Class AAA Flyers Cup tournament next month.
The Raiders’ aggressive style worked to their advantage as they physically dominated the Friars from the outset.
“I think we’ve got an older team” Marino said, “a big, strong team and I think it helped us early in the game, because we’re able to get physical, get pucks in, get pucks out, and play together as a team.”
Hun School coach Ian McNally noted the referees were tolerant of physical play early on. There were no penalties called in the first period. There were seven whistled in the second period and 10 in the third.
“The first two periods there weren’t many penalties being called,” McNally said. “That let us kind of set the tone.”
Malvern Prep was laboring under the additional burden of being shorthanded; offensive catalysts Jimmy and Jeremy Jacobs were away on club duty.
By the time the first period ended, the Friars were in a 2-0 hole.
Hun School’s Justin LaPlante and Malvern Prep’s Pax Hoshik barrel in front of the Malvern Prep net. (photo: Robert Barnes)
Josh Sosner got things started for the Raiders 10:30 into the opening period off an offensive zone faceoff. Marino made it 2-0 with 32 seconds left in the period when he topped in Aidan Shine’s shot from the right point.
Gavin Wilson got Malvern Prep on the board 3:08 into the second frame when he beat Stephen Chen in the Hun School net.
The Raiders answered back almost six minutes later with one of the most picturesque goals of the APAC season. Charles Etienne-Jeffe played the puck the puck up the center of the ice from the midway point on his own defensive zone and caught Ryan Levesque in full stride. Levesque beat the Friar defense and goaltender Brandon Novabilski to make it a 3-1 game at the 9:04 mark.
Just 31seconds later, Elian Estulin gave the hosts a 4-1 lead.
Aidan Kelly cut onto that lead when he scored for the Friars with 4:09 left in the period.
Going into the third frame, Jared Ingersol, who filled in for Bill Keenan behind the Malvern Prep bench (Keenan was absent due to a family issue) thought his team still had a shot as it started the third period with a 72-second power play; Marino was serving a high-sticking sentence.
“We thought we were right there coming out of the second period,” Ingersol said. “Hopefully we could get a power-play goal and get us back in the game.”
Alas for the Malvern Prep faithful, it wasn’t to be. The Raiders killed the remaining penalty time and Marino scored his second goal of the game and what turned out to be the only goal of the third period, just nine seconds after his penalty expired.
McNally saw the win as a season’s worth of effort paying off.
“We’ve had a lot of games where we work hard,” he said. “We shoot the puck, I think we’re playing physical, but we don’t score the clutch goals when we need them.
“And today was back-to-back breakaways and a guy coming out of the box for a breakaway goal. Those goals are clutch goals at the right time.”
Ice Chips—Hun School and La Salle will open the semifinal doubleheader next Wednesday at 4:00. The second semifinal matching second seed Holy Ghost Prep and third seed St. Joseph’s Prep will follow at 6:15. The Founders Cup title game is set for March 1. It will be hosted by the highest seeded finalist.
Malvern Prep 0 2 0—2
Hun School 2 2 1—5
First-period goals: Josh Sosner (HS) from Aidan Shine and Justin LaPlante, 10:30; Brendan Marino (HS) from Shine and Ryan Levesque 16:28
Second-period goals: Gavin Wilson (MP) from Matt Barbacane and Teague Murray, 3:08; Ryan Levesque (HS) from Charles Etienne-Jeffe, 9:04; Elian Estulin (HS) from Levesque and Charles Guida,9:35; Aidan Kelly (MP) from Murray and Jack Sharer, 11:51 (pp)
Third-period goals: Brendan Marino (HS) from Vincent Gregoire, 1:23
Shots: Malvern Prep 24, Hun School 52; Saves: Brandon Novabilski (MP) 47, Stephen Chen (HS) 22
Hockey Happenings 