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Sports

Ralli's Strong Goaltending Not Enough Against Hackensack

Ice hockey team falls 3-2 after Hackensack scores in final minute.

It took a last minute shot from the top of the right circle by Hackensack to keep the Watchung Hills Regional High School ice hockey team from earning a tie against a tough Hackensack team.  Goaltender Brett Ralli had been tremendous in the first 44 minutes making 21 stops, but with 31 seconds to go, Hackensack’s Matt Carroll ripped a shot Ralli didn’t see. 

“It caught me a little off guard.  There was a screen, too,” the Warrior goalie said.

The puck found the back of the net, lifting Hackensack to a 3-2 last minute win over Watchung on Wednesday night at Union Sports Arena.

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“It was just a good shot.  Got to give props to the kid,” Ralli said.

Despite giving up two goals in the first period and the final point at the end, Ralli made save after save in the last two periods, giving his team a chance to win the game.

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“Brett played pretty well.  He’s getting there,” said Warriors (3-13) head coach Justin Kaufman.  “He was good today.  He’s a young guy.  Moving forward for the future, Brett will be an important part of our team.”

Along with Ralli, the defense in front of him did everything they could to keep Hackensack (13-7-3) off the scoreboard, killing off multiple penalties, including a 5 minute one with 7 minutes left in the game. 

“My defense—I love them.  I love them to death,”  Ralli said. “They’re in front of me, they keep the puck out.  They do whatever they can.  We kept it 2-2 and then the last goal…just a fluke goal.”   

After fighting their way back from a 2-0 first period deficit, the Warriors just didn’t have enough to close out the 45 minutes. 

“It takes three periods of hockey to play,” Kaufman said.  “I’m frustrated with the fact that we don’t play three periods of hockey.  We play one, we play two...we play two-and-a-half.  I’m not just going to pinpoint one period of goodness of solid hockey.  I need these guys to come out and play three good periods of hockey.”

The Warriors certainly did not play a solid period of hockey in the 1st period.  Just under five minutes into the game, Felipe Gomez buried a centering a feed to make it 1-0 for Hackensack.  At the 9:24 mark, Hackensack struck again as Austin Holmes jammed home a loose puck in the crease, making it a 2-0 lead.   

In the second, the Warriors would get back in the game with a power play goal as Dylan Damato threw a shot towards the front of the net at a bad angle that bounced off the goalie’s equipment and in, making it a 1 goal game just a minute-and-a-half into the second.  After Watchung’s Bobby Andreozzi took a tripping penalty, it was actually Watchung who went on the attack as Sean Simons found a seam on a breakaway and scored a shorthander, knotting the game at 2, with just under 4 minutes left in the period. 

Even after tying the game, the Warriors had to kill of another penalty, which saw Ralli continue to come up big on point-blank shots.

“In the first couple games, all of us [the goalies] didn’t play very well,” said the Watchung goalie.  “Making saves pumps up your team and you want to do that.  I made as much as I could and tried to keep the puck out of the net.”

In what has been a tough season, the Warriors finally saw some breaks go their way.  Less than a minute after the Simons goal, Hackensack’s Matt Carroll hit the post twice in a span of 17 seconds, keeping the score at 2-2. 

In the third period, more of those breaks went to the brown and gold.  Seven minutes into the third, a potential Hackensack goal was waved off as the referee blew the whistle early on a puck that was still loose. 

Two minutes later, Carroll once again struck iron for Hackensack.  A minute after, Watchung defensemen Tim Tedesco dove towards his own goal and used his hand to keep a tricking puck from crossing the goal line, just in the nick of time.  But the Warriors luck ran out in that final minute.

“It’s been tough this season.  It seems like we’re not getting the bounces this year.  We’re not getting the breaks we did in past years,” Kaufman said.  “A team like we played today we need to bury 6 or 7 goals.  We’re not doing little things.  Little mistakes are costing us big losses.”

Still, Watchung is hoping to make the most of what little season is left, before looking ahead to the 2011-2012 campaign

“Tomorrow we’ll re-assess and think about it tonight…we’ll find some more positives,” Kaufman continued.  “But for right now, we got one game left which is Skyland Conference playoffs.  We’re not eligible for state playoffs.  It could be our last game of the season.  Right now, I want to look at positives but I want to correct the negative mistakes.”

“We’ve been on a losing streak, but we don’t want to keep one.  I didn’t want to lose,” said goaltender Brett Ralli.  “We just want to keep our heads up and finish the season out strong.”

Watchung’s next game is in the Skyland Conference playoffs on Monday. The time and opponent will be announced later.

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