Ewing hockey finds some positives in lopsided loss to ND

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The Ewing High hockey team played three full periods tonight.

That's quite a feat considering the Blue Devils relinquished six first-period goals and spent most of the affair with Colonial Valley Conference power Notre Dame hovering dangerously close to a 10-goal deficit. New Jersey scholastic hockey rules state a game ends if a team trails by 10 halfway through the contest or later.

Lawrence's Notre Dame High had full intentions of ending the contest early. Before his squad took the ice in the first period, Irish head coach Tony Tkaczuk gathered his team and insisted it finish the game in two periods.

As hard as Notre Dame tried, their opponents simply wouldn't oblige.

Buoyed by a third period goal by leading scorer Janko Mamrilla, numerous power play attempts and the solid play of freshman goalie Kyle Agin, Ewing High managed to hold on and ruin Notre Dame's plans. The final score read 10-1 in favor of the Irish, but the Blue Devils lasted the whole game and extracted some positives out of the mismatched match.

"It's tough to keep your head up in a game like that," Ewing head coach Chris Curto said. "They kept going. I was proud of them."

As both sides tired, the Blue Devils defied convention and outplayed a deeper Notre Dame team. Ewing held the Irish scoreless for the final 5:36 of the game and allowed only two goals in the final period and a half.

Senior captain Dom Capuano said Ewing (5-13-1, 2-9-0 in the CVC) needed to regroup after the Irish jumped out to a 2-0 lead just two minutes into the game. The Blue Devils concentrated on passing and building team communication as Notre Dame (12-1-1, 10-0-1 CVC) put the game out of reach in the first period.

But with five minutes left in the second period, fortunes changed a bit for Ewing. A timeout allowed Curto to bring Agin off the bench and rally his team. Almost immediately after play resumed, the Blue Devils squirted the puck passed the Norte Dame defense and attacked the Irish goal.

Multiple close-range shots failed to find the net, but seemed to rejuvenate the Blue Devils for a third-period push.

"I don't think they expected it," Capuano said. "Let's take it. Let's make them stay the whole game."

In the third period, Agin flashed the quick reflexes that has Curto excited about the future of Ewing High goalkeeping. The freshman, who now has a save percentage of 81.3 for the season, put himself in the way of a barrage of Notre Dame slap-shots and allowed the Blue Devils to focus on taking advantage of the multiple power-play opportunities the Irish handed Ewing in the third period. Mamrilla's goal, which came on a third-period power play, was his 23rd this season.

While Ewing only capitalized on one of the power plays, the strong overall effort and the ability to recover from a tough first period allowed the team to find a small bit of solace in a sound defeat.

And for the captain Capuano, it's just another reason to focus on the final six games of the season.

"I'd like to go out on a winning streak," Capuano said. "We'll try and salvage the last few games before I graduate.

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