HATFIELD—The Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference’s seventh season got off to a scintillating start Wednesday afternoon. St. Joseph’s Prep and La Salle played an entertaining 51 minutes of hockey before the Explorers left Hatfield Ice Arena as 4-2 winners in a rematch of La Salle’s win in last year’s Founders Cup final.
There was little to choose between the two sides.
“It was really fun,” said La Salle’s Jacob Warner. “We’re rivals, everyone around here knows any game against St. Joe’s is a good game.
“I think we came in here and knew it wasn’t going to be an easy game. All the guys knew they were not going to roll over and die for us. They’re going to bring it.”
LaSalle’s Jacob Warner sets ip in front of the net against St. Joseph’s Prep on Wednesday. The Hawks’ Declan Geary is the goaltender (Robert Barnes photo
The Explorers were shorthanded because of injuries and coach Wally Muehlbronner chose to rotate three lines rather than his usual four.
“I think only having three lines hurt us,” he said. “We didn’t have a ton of jump throughout the game. We had our spurts but weren’t able to really get a lot of sustained pressure at times. We kind of went in spurts.”
Warner, a senior, played a significant role in the day’s events. He scored first goal of the afternoon 4:17 into the opening period period after collecting a feed from Julian Tarsi who started the play with a run down the right wing.
The two combined again 55 seconds into the second frame when Tarsi scored from close range on a play that saw Warner pick up the primary assist.
Meantime, Jake Rossi was sharp in the Explorer net; he made 25 saves over the course of the first two periods.
Nole Donahue extended La Salle’s lead 7:24 into the final session and the hosts seemed to have things well in hand, particularly when back-to-back penalties put the Hawks two men down for 32 seconds with just 4:23 left in the game.
But Carter Short gave his team a jolt of energy when the Explorers lost the puck at center ice, sending Short away on a shorthanded breakaway. His goal with 2:47 remaining gave the Hawks a boos but Grant LaGreca answered for La Salle 27 seconds later.
Bradan Fisher finished the scoring when he found the back of the net for the Hawks (0-1) with 30 seconds remaining.
Despite the result, Hawks coach David Giacomin expressed satisfaction with his team’s performance.
“All in all, we played pretty well,” he said. “We moved our feet and we proved we can be on the same ice with a team like [La Salle]. We’re relatively young still, return quite a bit from last year, but they were all really young, so all in all it was a fairly even game except for a couple shots they made.”
Warner noted the importance of the Explorers (2-0) staring APAC play with an impressive win against an opponent that have a quality effort of its own.
“I think that’s huge,’ Warner said. ”When you get evenly matched teams, it’s good because while you do build confidence when you blow somebody out, it’s not really great because then you’re going to go in and think you’re going to blow out every other team you play.”
St. Joseph’s Prep 0 0 2—2
La Salle 1 1 2—4
First-period goals: Jacob Warner (L) from Julian Tarsi, 4:17
Second-period goal: Tarsi (L) from Warner and Tristan Mitchell, :55
Third-period goal: Nole Donahue (L) from Michael Esmond, 7:24; Carter Short (SJP) unassisted, 14:13 (sh); Grant LaGreca (L) from Alex Gibson, 14;40; Braden Fisher (SJP) from Michael Castelli and Tommy Ely, 16:30
Shots: St. Joseph’s Prep 32, La Salle 36; Saves: Declan Geary (SJP) 32, Jake Rossi (L) 30
-Rick Woelfel, hockeyhappenings.com