St. Joseph Boys Hockey Stuns Trumbull, 4-3

John Ferguson capped an emotional evening for the St. Joseph boys hockey team in dramatic fashion Wednesday night.

Ferguson scored the game-winning goal with just 17 seconds remaining as the Cadets rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period to stun archrival Trumbull 4-3 at the Shelton Rinks.

Trumbull's hopes ended when the Eagles were assessed a penalty for too many men on the ice after trying to get goaltender Chris Sarosky off for an extra attacker at 14:53.

Three seconds later, emotions boiled over behind the Trumbull net, resulting in double minors for both teams, although no fighting penalties were assessed, which means no suspensions will be forthcoming.

Fearing things could get worse, the officials decided not to play the final 4.4 seconds, a decision that Trumbull coach Greg Maxie accepted, especially with the faceoff in the Eagles' end.

"I don't have a problem with that," he said.  "I thought they (the officials) did a pretty good job. Four seconds left, probably only bad things can happen."

"The emotions being what they were and the faceoff being down there (in the Trumbull end), I don't know if four seconds really would have mattered," St. Joseph coach Marty Crouse added. "It's unfortunate."

This was a huge win for the Cadets, who erased a 3-1 deficit to improve to 6-4. Trumbull, a Division II school, dropped to 7-3.

In its previous game, St. Joseph played well in a 3-2 loss to second-ranked Ridgefield. That might have given the Cadets a spark Wednesday, yet they fell behind 2-0 early in the second period as Michael Ahearn scored twice for the Eagles.

After Ferguson finally got St. Joseph on the board with 35 seconds left in the second, the Cadets gave up what appeared to be a crushing goal to Brendan Strobel just 13 seconds later.

"They're not going to lay down just because we're Divison I and should beat them on paper by five goals," Crouse said. "Greg Maxey gets them fired up, and we got to be ready. We play good, we play bad, depending on the night. I can't get a good read on what we are about yet."

However, the Cadets were a different team in the third period, pulling even on goals by Matt Greenhut and Christian Keator in the first five minutes.

"Our kids just have to get the confidence to score," Crouse said. "We're not burying the puck like we should. The second period, we only had one goal. I thought we should have had a few more."

The teams settled in and when the clocked ticked below a minute, overtime was looming.

However, following a faceoff, the puck came to Ferguson, who was open in front, and he stuffed in the game-winner.

"To be honest, I thought we outworked them for two periods," Maxey said. "We got a little tired at the end. We executed our faceoffs all night. We tried to pull a play, and we might have got a little too cute. We were going for the win."

St. Joseph finished with a 28-20 edge in shots. Ron Johnson made 17 saves for the Cadets and Sarosky stopped 24 shots for the Eagles.