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The Woodstock Academy Centaurs boys’ ice hockey team has been very proficient about a couple of things; scoring in bunches and coming from behind.
The formula has been pretty successful as the Centaurs downed the Housatonic-Northwestern-Wamogo-Torrington cooperative, 6-3, Jan. 5 at the Jahn Ice Rink at Pomfret School to raise their record to 5-1.
It was their first and only game of the New Year’s week.
“It seems to be our M.O., at this point, to learn in the first period, take advantage in the second and really try to close it out in the third,” said Woodstock Academy coach Kevin Bisson. “I wish we would learn without letting them score on us, but if we can keep that resiliency that we have –we don’t get down when we’re down on the scoreboard – and battle back consistently, it’s a still a nice thing to see. We have that fight factor.”
The game against the Mountaineers was just another example.
Senior center Jack MacAuliffe and junior forward Luke Mollica scored in the first period for the Housatonic co-op.
The Centaurs cut the deficit in half when senior Matt Odom scored on an unassisted goal with 39 seconds to play in the period.
Odom then knotted things up just 50 seconds into the second period off an assist from Sean McCusker.
That was two goals in 1:30 of playing time.
The Mountaineers took the 3-2 lead on a goal by Owen Byrne halfway through the second period.
Odom finished up his hat trick with 3:13 left in the period off an assist from Ethan Thorpe and, true to form, went ahead to stay on a goal by Doug Newton 2 ½ minutes later.
“I would love to have the stat because when we score, we seem to do so in bunches. I’m curious about the time between goals average that we must have at this point. When we score one, we usually score two, which is great. We see the blood in the water and attack,” Bisson said.
The goals were a little more spread out in the third period with Liam McDermott scoring 4:53 into the period with help from Odom and Thorpe. Odom got his fourth goal and the final one for Woodstock Academy in the game while the Centaurs were shorthanded with 1:25 to play.
“You need a big player in big moments,” Bisson said. “We’re down, we need some momentum and he provides it. That short-handed goal really sealed the deal for us.”
Odom now has 10 goals and 12 points for the Centaurs, both are team bests.
Newton is next with seven goals and two assists thus far. Despite the 5-1 record, Bisson said there are things to work on.
“We have pretty strong starts. We pin them in their end and the puck doesn’t cross the red line for long portions of the start of games, but when it does, all of a sudden, we have these breakdowns and they wind up putting it home. We identify what we need to work on. We have certain strengths that we can continue to develop but we have to be aware of what we need to improve on and we certainly have some key areas in the defensive zone to clean up,” Bisson said.
Unfortunately, the Centaurs won’t have much time to work on much of anything this week.
They opened with a game at the Eastern Connecticut Eagles on Monday and travel to Suffield for a Wednesday afternoon game before finishing up the week on Friday at Tri-Town.
“I was watching the (Boston) Bruins the other day and they were talking about the NHL coaches griping that there is never time to practice, they never can seem to practice enough. Here we are and we’re basically looking at that,” Bisson said.
Bisson gave his team Sunday off and they will also take Tuesday off after a Monday night game, leaving only Thursday to practice.
“We’re looking at four games and one practice and that leaves a lot of drawing on the white board and hope they fully understand without going through the physical motions of it. It’s going to be a tough week. They are all away games,” Bisson said.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy
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